ILLINOIS 





£JLj 




Copyright N^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



ILLINOIS HISTORY STORIES 

FOR THE USE OF 

SEVENTH AND EIGHTH GRADE PUPILS 

IN THE 

SCHOOLS OF ILLINOIS 



W. H. CAMPBELL 



mm 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

FIELDING BALL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 



r?^"^ 

C^'2' 



'^UBRARY of OONiiRSSS 
Two Copies riecew^J 

APR 18 1908 






Copyright, Mabch, 1908 

BY THE 

FIELDING BALL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Chicago, Illinois 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER. PAGE 

I. The Physiography of the State 9 

II. The Early Inhabitants 22 

III. The Coming of the French — Marquette and 

JoHet 29 

IV. The Story of LaSalle 40 

V. French Occupation of the Mississippi Valley. . 51 

VI. The Transfer of the Valley From the French 

to the English 61 

VII. The Northwest Territory Passes to the United 

States — Story by George Rogers Clark .... 70 
VIII. From the Revolution to Statehood (1783- 

1818)— The Fort Dearborn Massacre 81 

IX. Acquiring Title to the Soil 94 

X. The State Constitutions 98 

XI. Constitutional Boundary and Divisions 102' 

XII. The Capitals of Illinois 109 

XIII. Evolution of the Illinois School Law 112 

XIV. Slavery in Illinois 116 

XV. The Black Hawk War 121 

XVI. The Mormons in Illinois 133 

XVII. The Illinois and Michigan Canal 140 

XVIII. The Advent of the Railroads 145 

XIX. State Educational, Charitable and Penal Insti- 
tutions 149 

XX. Some of the Men Who Made the State 152 

XXL The Making of Chicago 163 

XXII. A Land Flowing With Milk and Honey 183 

KXIII. A Chronological Index 188 

XXIV. A Word in Conclusion 190 



PREFACE. 

The stories about Illinois grouped together in this little 
booklet were used by the author in several classes before 
he had any thought of putting them into print. At the 
suggestion of a number of teachers who, doubtless with 
more good will than critical judgment, believed they might 
be as acceptable to other pupils as they had proven in the 
classes observed, the task of preparing them for the printer 
was undertaken and completed. 

The work has been done in the midst of a multitude of 
other duties which forbade more than an hour or two of 
continuous attention. A book produced under such cir- 
cumstances must show many marks of haste, lack of close 
connection in places, unfortunate choice of phraseology 
and, perhaps, some mistakes in statements of facts. The 
above explanation is our apology for these faults. 

It is hoped that the book may be useful as supplementary 
reading matter in the seventh and eighth grades of the 
grammar schools, and may also be an aid and incentive in 
the hands of the teachers of the lower grades for doing 
some oral teaching in the most interesting study of our own 
state geography and history. 

In the preparation of this book thousands of pages have 
been read covering all the accessible sources of informa- 
tion upon the Illinois country. It would be easy to compile 
a much larger book and any one else would doubtless make 
a different selection of topics, but it seemed to the writer 

5 



that for the purposes intended the subjects selected cover 
the ground briefly and completely and emphasize the im- 
portant epochs in the history of the state. 

For the facts contained in these pages we are "debtor 
both to the Greeks and to the barbarians ;" to the cultured 
essays and papers of such men as Mason, Caton and Parrish, 
and to the rude stories told by the frontiersmen who oc- 
cupied the prairies and timbered valleys of LaSalle County, 
where as a child we became familiar with the endless 
reaches of waving grass and corn and listened with open- 
eyed wonder to the fireside stories of early deeds of daring 
and privation. We are particularly indebted to Secretary 
of State James A. Rose for permission to reproduce for 
these pages some of the maps which appeared in the Blue 
Book, prepared under his supervision and through which 
many of our dates and facts have been verified. We also 
wish to acknowledge our indebtedness to Mr. C. E. Sieben- 
thal of the U. S. Geological Survey, from photographs of 
whose relief casts of the Chicago plain the two maps were 
reproduced. The map illustrating the route of Black Hawk 
was reproduced, with permission from McClure's Magazine, 
illustrating Tarbell's Life of Lincoln. 

In parting with the copyright of the book the author has 
agreed with the purchasers thereof to make all necessary 
corrections and revisions that may be suggested for future 
editions. It will be considered a favor if our friends who 
read or use the book will call attention to such errors or 
essential omissions as may chance to occur to them. 

The preparation and arrangement of these stories has 
been a source of great pleasure, and their presentation to 
the classes where they have been tested has been among the 
most enjoyable experiences we have had in the class room. 

Believing that the stories of heroism and consecration to 
duty that gather about the prairies and river valleys of 
Illinois are as interesting and as worthy a place in the 
pupils' book of remembrance as are the more distant and 

6 



vague stories of foreign lands and Atlantic coast coloniza- 
tions, we send this little book out without any great antici- 
pations yet with the hope that it may find a place and wel- 
come awaiting it in the schools of the state. 

W. H. Campbell. 
D. S. Wentworth School, yoth and Sangamon Sts., Chi- 
cago, III., March, ipo8. 



SKETCHES OF ILLINOIS HISTORY 



CHAPTER I 

THE PHYSIOGRAPHY OF THE STATE 

When we speak of a man, of what is it that we think ? Is 
it of his body and head and hands and feet ? Or is it of his 
mind and power to think and say? Or is it of his dispo- 
sition and habits and social Hfe? Now it may be of any 
one of these or of all combined in the one person. We 
recognize the many manifestations in the same individual. 
But under all the manifestations, giving to them definiteness 
and meaning, is the physical man. So intimate is the rela- 
tion between mind and body that whatever affects one re- 
acts upon the other. We expect to find a strong vigorous 
mind in a strong vigorous body. Habits of life that tend 
to weaken or destroy muscle and nerve tissue leave their 
impress upon the mental activities. Somehow our mental 
and spiritual forces are interwoven with the flesh and blood 
and nerves of the body. So true is this that when a man's 
thoughts are being presented to us we would like to see the 
man. It is not enough to hear the words; we want to see 
the form, we want to hear the utterance. 

What is true of the term "man" is equally true of the 
word "state." What is a state? Is it a certain number of 

9 



square miles of hill and valley and plain? The state of 
Illinois elected a governor. What elected him? The hills 
and valleys? 

"What constitutes a state? 
Not high raised battlement or labored mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate; 
Not cities fair with spires and turrets crowned. 

No: — Men, high-minded men. 
With powers as far above dull brutes endued, 

In forest, brake or den. 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude — 

Men who their duties know. 
Know too their rights, and knowing, dare maintain." 
The people, in their collective capacity, make the state. 

Then again we think of the state as a hive of industry, — 
its shuttles flying, its locomotives whistling and puffing, its 
mills blacking the heavens with their smoke, its cattle, its 
coal, its grain entrained for distant points, — and it is the 
industrial manifestations only that we see. Yet it is true 
that no matter whether it be the people in their sovereign 
capacity speaking through their laws and suffrages, or 
whether it be the courts speaking in the name of the sov- 
ereign people, or whether it be the industrial and commer- 
cial spirit, or whether it be its historic past, — under it all 
giving definiteness and comprehension is the physical make- 
up of the state, — the hills and valleys shut in by certain 
well defined and legalized limits. All the life of the state is 
so interwoven with the natural features that we must come 
back to them for our final anchoring place, — for our reason 
why. 

The physiography of any country eventually affects the 
character of the people. Sublimity and beauty of scenery 
inspires to full expansion of lungs and to force of circula- 
tion. Dullness and monotony cramps and stunts. The an- 
cient Greeks among their hills and near the boundless sea, 
and the Swiss amid their towering mountains, are fair illus- 
trations of the effect of nature upon a people. 

lO 



If this be true, it is well worth our while to study the 
physical make-up of our state and to become somewhat ac- 
quainted with its general characteristics and sources of 
strength before attempting to go into the incidental stories 
and narratives that have woven themselves around these 
hills and valleys of Illinois. 

One of the most marked physiographic facts that presents 
itself when we come to study the maps and the charts is the 
comparatively low altitude of Illinois. Its average height 
above the sea is six hundred thirty-two feet. That of In- 
diana is seven hundred feet; of Missouri, eight hundred 
feet; of Michigan, nine hundred feet; of Wisconsin, one 
thousand fifty feet; of Iowa, one thousand one hundred 
feet. If we erect proportional lines to indicate this we 
shall have a series somewhat as follows : 



^^4444 



1 1 i 


i 


1 


i 


1 1 1 


t 


4 


1 


• ! J 


! 


1 





ToVa"Vr8TMrrTiTriTd.i?rch. 



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X 



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V 



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When the tops of these lines are connected we see what 
a basin Illinois seems to form among the adjoining states. 
What would be the natural inference from this lay of the 
land? The rivers from all sides are directed toward this 
state. Of the boundary line, five hundred fifty miles of it 
is made by the Mississippi, three hundred miles by the Ohio 
and Wabash and sixty miles by Lake Michigan. 

Not only does the state have a long extent of water 
boundary, but it has numerous rivers within its own terri- 
tory. The following outline will show at a glance the prin- 
cipal streams with their outlets : 

II 



'st. Lawrence— Lake Michigan. | CaSt 



Drainage 
System. 



Mississippi. 



Apple. 
Plum. 

{Pecatonica. 
Kisliwaukee. 
Green. 
Edwards. 
Henderson. 

Des Plaines. 
Kankakee. 
Fox. 
Illinois, -l Vermilion. 
Spoon. 
Mackinaw. 
Sangamon. 



Kaskaskia. 
Big Muddy. 

( Cache. 
Ohio. < Saline. 

f Wabash. 



r Little Wabash. 
\ Embarrass. 



This outline at once suggests that the state is well watered 
and well drained. A region of country so intersected by 
streams, with their many tributaries, can have no place for 
arid sections. It suggests also that there must be a number 
of natural valleys and divides. A glance at a relief map of 
the state shows this to be true. 

During the early geological periods the various forma- 
tions of rock were laid down and in the many changes that 
occurred were partly washed away. In the process of 
formation these layers of primitive rocks were slightly wrin- 
kled by pressure and in places lifted up a little above the 
average level of the surrounding section. As we cross the 
state in different directions we find the outcroppings of these 
partially eroded formations obtruding from the drift and 
soil which cover most of the surface of the state. On the 
Rock river, near Oregon, we find an outcropping of the 
St. Peter's sandstone, which gives to that region a most 
picturesque and attractive scenery. There is probably no 
section of the state in which the natural scenery is more 
inviting than in the neighborhood of Oregon. On the Illi- 
nois river, around Ottawa, there is another outcropping of 

12 



this same sandstone, giving another region of unusual va- 
riety and beauty. Starved Rock, Deer Park, and the many 
beautiful canons of LaSalle county are all formed in the 
St. Peter's sandstone group. At Joliet and near Rock Is- 
land and in Calhoun county, and in several other localities, 
we find decided exposures of the Niagara limestone group. 
In other places we find the sub-carboniferous and the car- 
boniferous, bearing coal, exposed to view. In all parts of 
the state if borings are sunk deep enough the primary rock 
may be found. 

Why are not these rock formations exposed in all parts 
of the state ? Why is it that in most places, in digging for 
water, we have to bore through many feet of sand, gravel 
and boulders before coming to the bed rock? In many 
places this layer on top of the main rock is thirty feet deep ; 
in some places it is from one hundred to one hundred and 
fifty feet deep. How did all this come about? This intro- 
duces us to another phase of the physical make-up of the 
state. 

Long after the primary rock formations had been laid 
down, after they had many times been lifted above the 
waters and sunk again, after the lower Silurian limestone 
around Galena had been filled with lead, and the fields cov- 
ering the central parts of the state had been stored with 
sufficient coal to keep all the fires of the world burning for 
centuries, there came a great change over the face of the 
earth. No man knows exactly how or why it came about, 
but it grew very cold. For hundreds of years the plants 
and animals that had flourished where we now live were 
frozen out. Nothing could grow in all this northern region 
of the world. A cold barren reach of ice and snow grad- 
ually covered the land. It grew heavier and thicker, col- 
lecting upon the high lands of Canada and the regions to 
the north as it now collects upon the highest parts of the 
Alps in Europe, or of the coast range in our own Alaska. 
These great fields of ice, as' they grew larger and heavier, 

13 



began to move slowly towards the lower lands. As they 
moved down they pushed all obstructions before them. A 
grove of trees was less than a cobweb in their path. A 
projection of rock sticking up from the surface a hundred 
feet or more would be ground into fragments and carried 
along with the great ice mass moving toward the south. 
This great ice plow not only swept the surface bare as it 
went, but it dug into the earth, carving out holes hundreds 
of feet deep and thousands of miles in area. The rocks it 
carried along were rolled over and over again under the 
great ice mass until they were ground into huge marbles or 
boulders. 

But this ice march could not go on forever. There must 
come a place where the heat of the sun was sufficient to 
melt the front edge of this ice field. In Illinois this place 
was reached about sixty miles north of Cairo. Here the 
ice began to melt, and the dirt and gravel and sand it had 
ground up and carried along were dropped upon the old 
primary rock formations. Where the glacier stopped, all 
along its front end, a ridge of gravel and clay was built up 
and left. It is there today, so we can stand upon it and 
compare it with the land north and south of it, and know 
for ourselves that we are standing upon soil brought down 
by this great ice wagon from the north. Not only once, 
but twice and three times, perhaps oftener, did this happen, 
except that each time the front edge of the ice river stopped 
sooner than the time before. So over the northern part of 
the state three, at least, of these great glaciers swept, cover- 
ing the old rock in places very deep. This is why we have 
to dig through sand and gravel and boulders so many feet 
before striking the solid rock. This is why boulders, almost 
round, from six inches to five feet in diameter, can be found 
scattered over the surface of the state. This is why, chiefly, 
that we have Lake Michigan and all the other northern 
lakes. The great holes scooped out by the moving ice fields 

14 



were filled with water, when the glaciers melted, and there 
they are to this day. 

The loads of dirt carried were in some cases dropped in 
the beds of old rivers, filling them up so completely and 
solidly that when the glaciers were gone things had been 
so changed that the rivers had to dig out new channels. 
This was true of the Mississippi river near Rock Island and 
for forty or more miles below that point. This was true of 
the Illinois river near Hennepin. Many other cases can be 
shown where this happened. In places these terminal mo- 
raines formed basins, the dirt being piled up on all sides, 
thus shutting in thousands of acres of land. These areas 
could not get good drainage and became the swamp lands 
that our farmers are still draining with tile. In some of 
these basins the best kind of soil has been deposited by 
growth and decay and the small streams seeping into them 
until now, when drained by the farmer, they are the richest 
lands to be had. There are farmers in northern Illinois who 
are reaping sixty and seventy bushels per acre from fields 
in which they went duck hunting or swimming when they 
were boys. 

It is now time for us to look at a map of the state upon 
which these moraines are located. We see that the first 
moraine extends westward from near the point where the 
Wabash river leaves the Illinois state boundary. This 
moraine has been called the Shelbyville moraine. You notice 
the Embarrass river has cut through it in order to reach its 
natural outlet. The second moraine is shaped something 
like an elbow, reaching from the eastern part of the state 
a few miles north of the Shelbyville moraine bending to the 
north at about the forty-first degree of latitude, and ending 
in the state of Wisconsin. This is known as the Champaign 
moraine. This is by far the largest and most prominent one 
in the state. You notice how the Illinois river has cut its 
way across this moraine. The third follows Lake Michi- 
gan and is located only a few miles to the west of its south- 

15 



ern part. This is called the Valparaiso moraine; the Des 
plaines river had to cut its way across it. Should we take 
the Illinois Central railroad at Chicago and travel to Cairo, 
we would cross the Valparaiso moraine, then the valley 
drained by the Kankakee and Vermilion rivers, then the 
Champaign moraine, then, following the ridge that divides 




> 



the Embarrass from the Kaskaskia, we would enter the 
basin of the Big Muddy river, and in this basin would come 
to and cross that southern uplift known as the Ozark High- 
lands. South of these highlands there is no drift. This 
Ozark ridge of hills is not more than ten or twelve miles 
wide, but reaches across the state from Shawneetown on 

i6 



the Ohio to Grand Tower on the Mississippi. In places the 
elevations reach an altitude of seven or eight hundred feet, 
and in one place to one thousand forty-seven feet. 

One other little -section of the state seems to have been 
left untouched by the great ice rivers. This is the extreme 
northwestern part of the state, a little corner comprising Jo 
Daviess county. Here we have the highest point of land in 
the state, Charles Mound, which rises to an altitude of 
twelve hundred fifty-seven feet. 

A study of this map will show us that there are seven 
distinct drainage basins in the state. These are drained 
respectively by the Rock River, the Illinois river, the Kas- 
kaskia river, the Big Muddy river, the Embarrass river, the 
Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and Lake Michigan. Perhaps 
the smallest of all these areas is that drained by the lake. 
In the ice age the waters from the lake region poured out 
through the Illinois valley to the Mississippi, and thence to 
the Gulf. But as the height of the waters sank, the little 
elevation to the west cut the waters of the lake off in that 
direction and forced them to find an outlet by way of the 
north. The Chicago drainage channel has opened up this 
old waterway, giving the waters of Lake Michigan an outlet 
to the Gulf. 

In the places where the drift material was not deposited, 
the old rock formations are at the top, making rugged 
scenery and furnishing picturesque building sites. In many 
such places even the abutments for bridges can be spared, 
as the natural formation gives ample support. We find the 
drift in other sections piled up in great mounds, as if done 
by hand. Joliet Mound, near Joliet, was a good example of 
this until the Rock Island railway company decided a few 
years ago that the material was needed for ballast. Where 
this drift covers the state, canal digging and railroad build- 
ing can be done with comparative ease. There seems to 
have been considerable regularity in the deposition of the 
drift. It did not all drop down in a heap, but the heavier 

17 




parts settled down first, then the Hghter were deposited 
layer after layer, something as the leaves of a book. 

In an early day the waters of Lake Michigan filled all the 
plain where the city of Chicago is now built, reaching to the 
edge of the Valparaiso moraine. In the midst of these ancient 
waters. Stony Island and Blue Island were spots of dry land, 
— oases in the desert of waters. As the waters receded, the 
lake shrunk toward its present outline, and room was made 
for the building of the great city of the West. 

i8 






^^^"H, 







« o « » "-t 




There are vast regions of Illinois almost as level as a floor. 
There are thousands of acres from which the first farmers 
did not have to cut a tree nor dig a stump before putting the 
plow to work. The natural drainage with the wonderfully 
rich soil marks out these great reaches of prairie land as 
one of the best agricultural regions of the earth. An 
immense population could be supported from the fields of 
this state. 

We will look at another map before passing from this part 
of our subject. The storm maps of the United States show 

19 



that most of the storms, the winds, the rains, the changes 
of temperature, follow three well-defined routes. One of 
these clings to the Atlantic seaboard. Another, beginning 
in the southwest, crosses the country diagonally to Maine. 
This route crosses Illinois along the Kaskaskia valley. The 
third begins in the Pacific ocean, or in the mountain regions 
of our Northwest, and crosses the country in an easternly 
direction to Maine. This route crosses Illinois in the lati- 




tude of Chicago. You notice that there is no state except 
Illinois that is crossed by two of these storm routes until 
we reach New England. This will help us to understand 
why Illinois has such a variety of weather and perhaps more 
sudden changes of temperature than any other state in the 
Union. 

We should examine, also, two other charts, one showing 
the average temperature and the other the average rainfall 
for the state. In all such charts the same temperature is 
represented by very crooked lines. The altitude, the con- 
formation of the drainage basins, the forests and prairies 
and the amount of rainfall all have an influence upon the 

20 



temperature. Hardly any two places are exactly alike in 
these respects, so we should not expect to find many places 
alike in temperature records. In the extreme north part of 
the state the average temperature is forty-six degrees, while 
in the extreme south it is fifty-eight degrees. This is a 
difference of twelve degrees and means a difference of about 
three weeks in the season. 

On the chart showing the average rainfall we will see that 
there is quite a variation, reaching all the way from twenty- 
eight to forty-five inches per year. The average for the 
state is about thirty-eight inches. 

Now, we have attempted to get before us the physical 
outlook of the state, showing how it was made, of what its 
bone and muscle consist, whence its soil came, how its mois- 
ture and drainage are provided, and the consequent possi- 
bilities of this region for civilization and culture. We have 
seen what nature has done for this region. What has man 
done to perfect her work ? 



21 



CHAPTER II 

THE EARLY INHABITANTS 

This was a beautiful prairie land reaching far and far away 
beyond the power of the eye to see. Miles and miles of it 
were almost as level as a floor. The drainage was nearly 
perfect. There was enough of timber to give variety to the 
landscape and to furnish the necessary building material for 
a moderate population of simple people. The soil left by the 
glaciers and added to by the natural growth of vegetation 
was as rich as a garden. Surely such a field as this was 
destined to a history of stirring events and of industrial life. 
What people first owned these lands, and how came they 
to leave them, and by whom were they succeeded? The 
native inhabitants were Indians. When Columbus added the 
western world to the geography of the middle ages, in 1492, 
he found a land that was beyond value in its resources and 
in its possibilities; but the people acquired with the land 
were of little value to the world's history. They have been 
the means of putting to shame the records of Spanish, Eng- 
lish and American explorers, colonists, and statesmen whose 
hands have been drenched in the blood of innocent savages, 
and whose treaties have been violated with impunity because 
made with these helpless children of the forest. But they 
have been a hopeless problem in all efforts to civilize them. 
They have not the inherited instincts of the white man, and 
do not want to live as the white man lives. They were in 

22 



possession of these boundless plains and interminable woods 
from Maine to California and from the Gulf of Mexico to 
the frozen regions of Alaska. They had their own institu- 
tions, their own manner of life, and their own religious 
beliefs and superstitions, as simple as the life they lived. 
They had their families, their tribes and their great clans, 
distinguished one from the other, as were the nations of 
Europe, by differences of dialect, language and customs. 

There is no satisfactory evidence that any race of people 
preceded the Indians in the occupation of this country. 
Some years ago the scientists thought there had been an 
older race of people, whom they called Mound Builders, who 
had erected great mounds in many sections of the country. 
These mounds still exist, such of them as have not been 
destroyed, most of them in river valleys not far removed 
from the streams. This one fact suggests a possible explana- 
tion of their origin, — they may have been devised for the 
purpose of protecting the people from the great overflows 
of the rivers, which were probably much greater than now. 
We have seen one of these mounds some twelve miles or 
more from the usual channel of the Mississippi river in Mis- 
souri, built upon with corn cribs, barns, sheds and dwelling- 
house, the only spot above water for a distance of five miles 
in any direction. The farmer had taken advantage of one 
of the old Indian mounds for the same purpose for which 
the Indians had erected it, — to keep himself above the Mis- 
sissippi overflow in the month of February. Many of these 
mounds have been found to contain skeletons, pottery and 
various other things, and from the remains found scattered 
about, a sort of culture, religious and industrial, has been 
supposed and defended. Nothing, however, has been found 
and nothing proven that might not apply to the Indian tribes 
as they were in the olden times. 

A glance at a map will help us to understand that at the 
time of the earliest white occupation of the country. North 
America was peopled by three great classes or grades of 

23 




Indians. To the extreme north' and west, beyond the Rocky 
mountains, were the savage nations. These lived wholly on 
the results of the chase and the streams, with what fruits and 
roots they could gather. They made no pretense at culti- 
vating the ground, nor did they have any of the conveniences 
of life. To the east of the Rocky mountains, extending to 
the Atlantic and to the Gulf of Mexico, were the barbarous 
tribes. These depended not alone upon the hunt and the 
streams, but made some rude attempts at cultivation. They 
grew fields of corn and beans and tobacco. They gathered 
their harvests and stored the grain for winter use. They 

24 



used the bow and arrow pointed with flint, or hurled the 
spear, similarly pointed, in the chase or in war. For pastime 
they danced around their camp-fires, or their young men ran 
races or played at games of ball on the open fields. These 
were the Indians with whom the English and French had to 
do in this country. To the southwest and extreme south, 
reaching through Mexico and Central America, were the 
half-civilized races. These had a much higher degree of 
civilization. They had a system of counting and writing. 
They kept records of events and had a rude astronomy. 
They were skilled builders in stone, and some of their struc- 
tures are the wonder of antiquarians today. These were 
the races with whom the Spaniards came in contact in 
Mexico and whose land they overran and whose civilization 
they destroyed without appreciating it. 

We see, then, that the Indians who occupied the country 
where we live were of the barbarous races. These Indians 
belonged chiefly to three great families or clans. These were 
the Iroquois, whose principal lands were in New York ; the 
Algonquins, who covered an immense territory reaching 
from Labrador to the Mississippi, completely surrounding 
the Iroquois ; and the Sioux, the latter living chiefly west of 
the Mississippi. Each of these families was divided up into 
a number of tribes. In Illinois we have for the most part 
the tribes of the Illinois, the Miamis, Pottawattomies, Kicka- 
poos and Winnebagoes. All these except the Winnebagoes 
belonged to the great Algonquin family. The Winnebagoes 
were of the Sioux family. Of all the Indians in North 
America, the Algonquins were the most amenable to civiliza- 
tion. The Sioux were the most warlike and unapproachable. 
They have always been a proud, warring people. Sitting 
Bull, who lead his braves to the massacre of General Custer's 
little army a few years ago, was a Sioux Chief. 

A couple of maps showing the arrangement of the Indian 
tribes of Illinois in 1700 and again in 1760 will illustrate 
how they shifted from place to place and how the tribes 

25 




seemed to shrink as war and the exigencies of protection and 
food came upon them. Notice the territory of the IlHnois 
tribe in the two maps. The Sioux sometimes crossed the 
river and made war upon the more peaceable Algonquins on 
the IlHnois side. The warlike Iroquois from near Lake 
Ontario often took the warpath and, trailing the forests for 
more than five hundred miles, slaughtered the tribes in the 
valley of the Illinois and laid their fields waste, leaving their 
villages but smoking ruins. 

It was a cruel way of life, but it was all they knew. To 
this life they had been born, and their fathers for genera- 
tions had known nothing better, nor did they wish for any 

26 




other. They were willing to live their rude lives, much of 
the time in hunger and cold, and to die under the scalping- 
knife or under the dreadful torture of the stake. In these 
valleys of the Rock river, the Illinois, the Kaskaskia, the 
Big Muddy, the Embarrass, and in the Chicago plain, the 
smoke from hundreds of little Indian villages rose to the 
clouds, and along these streams the rude savage caught his 
fish or his game, and here the squaws tilled the fields of 
squash and Indian corn. Here they chased the buffalo and 
the deer, and after the successful big hunt in the autumn 
they had their dances and feasts lasting for days at a time. 
Here their children grew to manhood and womanhood, their 

27 



sons and daughters were married and given in marriage. 
The cradle and the grave were there as they are with us, to 
mark the two most eventful epochs in a human life. The 
Indian had his way of looking at it as we have ours. 

Thus the Indians of Illinois had been living for hundreds 
of years, and thus they were living in 1673, when the first 
glimmer of a new day and a different form of life fell across 
their valley and gave promise of marvelous changes. The 
palefaces reached the Illinois country, and with their coming 
history really begins. Whence came the first white men to 
these valleys ? Who were they and why did they come ? 



28 



CHAPTER III 

THE COMING OF THE FRENCH — MARQUETTE AND JOLIET 

During the years 1 541 -1543 four historic events were 
taking place in different parts of North America which we 
may link together for the sake of memory help. DeSoto 
was wandering across the southern wilderness, battling with 
wild beasts and still wilder men, probably penetrating as 
far as the present boundary of Kansas, finding in all his 
journeyings nothing so wonderful as his burying-place — 
the Mississippi river. Coronado, coming up from the north- 
western part of Mexico, was searching for the marvelous 
city of Quivera, which existed only in diseased imagina- 
tions. In his dreary wanderings he came within a few 
hundred miles, perhaps within a few days' march, of De 
Soto's men. On the Pacific coast, Cabrillo, a third Span- 
iard, had discovered the shore line of the present California, 
and, wintering in the harbor of San Diego, had died there. 
Away off to the northeast, Cartier, sailing up the St. Law- 
rence river to the present site of Montreal, attempted to 
plant a colony. Cartier failed in this attempt, but the 
French had entered upon the plan of colonizing, and they 
are to be dealt with in our history as an active force for a 
period of a little more than two hundred years. 

In 1608 a permanent settlement was made at Quebec. 
After three-quarters of a century, the French were at last 
firmly planted upon the soil of the New World. In 161 1 

29 



they established themselves at Montreal. Within the next 
sixty years they went up the Ottawa river, crossed by port- 
age to the Georgian Bay, and then to the Sault Ste. Marie 
rapids, where in 1641 they established a mission among the 
Indians and a post for the fur traders. Then they went 
on to the west, establishing another post at Pointe es Sprite, 
near the southwestern extremity of Lake Superior, in 1665. 
Other posts were established at Mackinac in 1669, at St. 
Xavier, on Green Bay in 1669, and at Frontenac in 1673. Dot- 
ting these places on our map, we shall see that the French 
during these years were exploring the region of the Great 
Lakes and were making the natural waterways the means of 
communication and travel. It is at this point that we in the 
Illinois country come into intimate touch with these 
exploring French. 

It will be interesting to follow with our map and pencil 
the development of the posts and forts established during 
the next three-quarters of a century. In 1679 we find Ft. 
Miami at the mouth of the St. Joseph river on Lake Michi- 
gan; in 1670, Ft. Crevecoeur where Peoria now stands; in 
1682', Ft. St. Louis near the present town of Utica, Illinois ; 
in 1695, Kaskaskia; in 1717, New Orleans; in 1735, Vin- 
cennes; in 1753, Le Boeuf, Venango, Ft. Duquesne, and 
other establishments in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes. 
(See map, page y2.) 

We have not named all the places where these enter- 
prising Frenchmen pushed their way among the Indians, 
erecting their chapels, setting up their crucifixes, and build- 
ing huts for the accommodation of the traders. It must not 
be supposed for a moment that these settlements stand for 
the same thing that the Pilgrim or Puritan settlements of 
New England stand for, or those of Virginia and Carolina. 
Far from it. Yet they were way-stations in the great valley 
of the Mississippi, planted upon all the routes of travel, and 
here were the lilies of France giving notice to all the world 
that Frenchmen had taken possession of this valley and 

30 



claimed it as their own by right of original discovery and 
exploration. 

The most prominent and the most lovable character con- 
nected with the explorations of the Middle West was the 
heroic Father Marquette. His is one of the lives untouched 
by selfishness and untainted by greed, that stands out like a 
great promontory in the sea of passion and cruelty and 
scheming that swept over the New World during the first 
centuries of its history. He was molded of the material of 
which martyrs are made. He never desired ease or fame. 
He loved humanity and wild nature. He lived as he had 
hoped to live, and finally died as he had prayed to die, far 
from the habitations of men, in the midst of the intermi- 
nable forests beside the waterways leading to the Great 
Lakes, his face turned toward heaven, and only a few faith- 
ful converts to mark his passing. 

Father Marquette was born near Paris, in France, in 
1637. He came of a warlike family among the wealthy and 
noble of his time. He chose the priesthood for his profes- 
sion and was educated in the schools of the Jesuits, a strict 
religious society belonging to the priesthood of the Catholic 
church and devoted to the spread of their faith in all parts 
of the world. This society was organized about 1535, and 
from that day to this, wherever the Church has needed a 
man to take desperate chances, — on the frontier, in the wil- 
derness, in battle, in slavery, beside the king's throne, or at 
the martyr's stake, — she had but to suggest, and there were 
men of this order waiting to do or die. Father Marquette 
belonged to this order and at the age of twenty-nine was 
set apart for missionary work in the wilderness of the New 
World. 

In September, 1666, he reached Quebec. Here he 
reported to his superior and thanked God that he was at last 
so near the field of work which he had been desiring for 
years. But much was needed by the young man before he 
was fully equipped for his work. In a few days he was sent 

31 



up to Three Rivers, about seventy-five miles above Quebec, 
where he wsls placed under the instructions of an expe- 
rienced teacher and missionary. Here he remained for three 
years, getting ready. He had to learn Indian languages 
and dialects; he had to learn how to provide himself with 
food in the wilderness, how to make rude huts and shelters, 
how to cook his own food, how to paddle canoes and swim 
swollen streams, and how to make his own clothing out of 
such material as the forest furnished. There was much 
besides books for this young priest to study, and he gave 
himself unflinchingly to the work. 

In the summer of 1668, Father Marquette was ready to 
go farther toward the frontier to make proof of the spirit 
that was in him. He set out with a small party for the sta- 
tion at Sault Ste. Marie, near the mouth of Lake Superior. 
Here there was a mission, as we have noted on our map. 
This seems to have been the most important station west 
of Montreal. They went up the Ottawa river by canoe until 
opposite Georgian Bay, and carried their canoes across the 
portage to the bay, and then paddled along the shores of the 
lake until they reached the mission at the Sault. This jour- 
ney of nearly nine hundred miles probably occupied most of 
the summer of 1668. A year later, September, 1669, we 
find Marquette again on the move. This time he was sent 
to take charge of the mission at Pointe es Sprite, or La 
Pointe, near the southwestern extremity of Lake Superior. 
In about two years after his arrival at this place, the Indian 
tribes with whom he had labored Vv^ere obliged to abandon 
their homes and flee from the invasion of warring tribes 
with whom they had become involved in quarrels. The 
mission was abandoned and, with the Indians, Marquette 
turned eastward and located on the island of Mackinac near 
where the waters of Superior find their entrance to Lake 
Huron. Here a mission station had already been estab- 
lished ; a short time afterwards it was removed to the main- 
land on the north shore and was called St. Ignace. The 

32 



thousands of tourists and visitors who every summer visit 
these straits and wander over the ground made memorable 
by the labors of these early missionaries, try to dream over 
the records suggested by the scanty markings and monu- 
ments, wondering what manner of men these must have 
been. 

On December 8, Marquette, here at the mission of St. 
Ignace, received the most joyful message he had heard since 
landing in the New World. Upon that day, just as winter 
was closing in, a lone traveler drew his birch-bark canoe up 
on the beach beside the mission station, and, meeting the 
priest, placed in his hands a message from the governor of 
Canada. This traveler was Joliet, and this day the names 
of Marquette and Joliet were to be joined for register and 
transmission side by side to coming generations. 

Joliet was the son of a wagon-maker. He had been born 
and reared in Canada. He had studied for the priesthood, 
but after a time had given up this plan for the more adven- 
turous and fascinating life of an explorer. He was an 
unusually bright and capable man. His ability won the 
esteem and regard of all with whom he came in contact. 
He was brave, fearless, energetic, resourceful, — an ideal man 
for explorations among the wild men of an unbroken wil- 
derness. 

For years the governor of Canada had been hearing 
rumors of a great river to the south and west of the lakes, 
and he was desirous of knowing more about it. It was 
uncertain whether this river emptied into the Pacific or into 
the Atlantic. The country to the east of it was known as the 
Illinois country because the Illinois Indians were living along 
this river. It came about that, acting under orders of the 
French king, who was anxious to discover this unknown 
river, the governor of Canada sought to find some one who 
could lead an expedition into the wilderness for this purpose. 
He selected Joliet, the son of the wagon-maker. 

It was important to have in every exploring party a priest. 

33 



This was important for several reasons. The church and 
the state were acting together as one in this work of opening 
up the New World. The priest was usually familiar with 
the Indian languages and dialects, and could thus act as an 
interpreter; he was known by this dress among all the 
tribes of the great valley, because where he had not been 
his fame had preceded him, and the "black robes" were 
known as the medicine men of the palefaces. Joliet had 
known Marquette in the early days at Montreal and at 
Three Rivers, and the two had formed a liking for each 
other. It was greatly to his delight that Father Marquette 
was named to accompany him on this trip. 

It was this commission that Joliet placed in the hands of 
the priest on that eighth day of December, 1672. Mar- 
quette had for years been looking with longing eyes toward 
the Illinois country. He had prayed that it might be per- 
mitted him to go forth as a pioneer missionary among these 
people, carrying them the gospel, living and dying among 
them. Upon this night his prayer was answered, and Mar- 
quette was happy. He had never been a rugged man. He 
had the physique of a scholar and a civilian rather than that 
of an explorer, and so it came about that the life to which 
this message consigned him was to lead to an early grave as 
the result of exposure and over-exertion. 

All winter Marquette and Joliet were making their prepa- 
rations for the journey. They gathered all the information 
they could about the country, its people, its languages and 
its streams. On the seventeenth of May, 1673, a little 
group of people gathered on the beach at St. Ignace to see 
the two depart. They took with them five oarsmen to 
propel their boats. With Joliet in one boat and Marquette 
in the other, after the prayers and blessings of the priest on 
shore, the boats were pushed out and the eventful voyage 
was begun. 

They followed the west shore of Lake Michigan to Green 
Bay. Entering this, they proceeded to the mission station 

34 



of St. Xavier. Here they rested a while with the priests and 
people of this mission ; then, pushing on, they proceeded to 
the head of Green Bay, then up the Fox river to Winnebago 
lake; then, branching off to the west, they followed the 
Fox river until they came to the large Indian village of the 
Mascoutees. They had heard much of this village, and it 
was here they expected to receive information concerning 
the peoples and the lands they were to visit. They found the 
savages friendly and ready with information giving definite 
location to the great river which flowed away to the south, 
they knew not how far, but stated that it was beset with 
great monsters and that its banks were inhabited by blood- 
thirsty tribes that would permit none to pass. They tried to 
persuade the adventurers to return the way they came, but, 
failing in this, they readily supplied guides to show them the 
way over the portage to a river which they said would flow 
into the great river. A short journey brought them to the 
river sought; it was what is now known as the Wisconsin. 
Here they held a religious service, then embarked, and in a 
few days, — on June 17, — they floated out through the mouth 
of the Wisconsin upon the bosom of the great river, the 
Mississippi. Perhaps these were the first Europeans since 
the days of DeSoto (1541) that had looked upon the waters 
of the great river. The discovery of DeSoto had been 
forgotten, so we may well Say these men were the discoverers 
of the river, coming upon it at the mouth of the Wisconsin. 
We cannot follow all the known details of this journey, 
but on the twenty-fifth of June they saw tracks on the west 
bank of the river. Joliet and Marquette landed, and after 
following the tracks for five or six miles across a beautiful 
prairie, they came to an Indian village. Calling aloud for 
some one to come out, they were answered by a swarm of 
savages who sent four of their old men to meet them bear- 
ing calumets, or peace-pipes. Marquette asked them who 
they were. They replied that they were Illini, which in 
their language means "men." By this name they were ever 

35 



after known, and the name has come down to our state, and 
many times, under a more cultured civiHzation, the palefaces 
have acted less like men than did these primitive red men of 
the prairies. Leaving this village, Marquette and Joliet 
proceeded on their journey, with many interesting incidents, 
until they had gone as far as the mouth of the Arkansas 
river. Here, fearing that the tribes along the shore might do 
them harm, and finding that some of them had firearms, 
and believing that they had determined the course and outlet 
of the great river, they decided to return. On their upward 
journey, when they reached the mouth of the Illinois river 
they decided to ascend it and attempt to get back to the 
lakes in that way. Marquette wrote that in all their wander- 
ings they had seen nothing like this valley of the Illinois 
"as to its fertility of soil, its prairie and its woods; its 
cattle, elk, deer and bustards, ducks and beavers." After 
more than two hundred years, we who live upon the produce 
of that valley agree most fully with his estimate of its riches. 

Below Ottawa, near the present site of Utica, they found a 
village of Kaskaskia Indians. They spent some time here 
and were furnished with guides to conduct them by the best 
route to the lake. They ascended the Illinois, then the Des- 
plaines, until they came to the divide which separates the 
Desplaines valley from the lake, and, carrying their canoes 
over the ridge, were again able to paddle upon either the 
Chicago or the Calumet river — we are not sure which — to 
Lake Michigan. The travelers at once pushed for the north 
along the western shore of the lake, past the present sites 
of Evanston, Racine, Milwaukee, and on and on until 
they reached Green Bay and, at the end of September, 
pulled their worn canoes up at the mission of St. Xavier 
after an absence of little more than four months. 

What a journey they had made ! What a record to carry 
back to the governor of Canada and to send home to the 
French king! Joliet could not go back to Canada during 
the winter, so he worked on his report. Marquette also 

36 



wrote out a report of their expedition. By the irony of 
fate, the next spring, when he had reached within a few miles 
of Montreal, Joliet was capsized in his canoe, his crew were 
all drowned, and he barely escaped with his life, while his 
precious manuscripts were lost forever. So no written report 
of the itinerary could be made by him, and it was not until 
some years after that the report made by Marquette was 
obtained and published in France. Joliet does not seem 
to have been rewarded in any adequate way by the French 
for his wonderful achievement, and in history to this day 
his name is regarded as second to that of Marquette in 
the discoveries and explorations in which they shared. So 
this man, burning for fame and public recognition, was 
passed by, while the humble priest, who desired neither 
fame nor recognition, became the chief authority in this 
world-wide story. 

With the fortune of Joliet we have nothing more to do, 
but we shall follow Marquette a little longer. When they 
left the Kaskaskia Indians on the Illinois river. Father 
Marquette had promised them that he would return to them 
to teach them the gospel. He was very anxious to return 
as soon as possible. But the exposure on the trip had so 
broken his health that it was impossible for him to start at 
once upon another journey. Spring came, and he hoped 
that with the warmer weather he would grow stronger, but 
the days of summer came and went, finding him still at the 
little mission station at Green Bay. But in the autumn he 
thought he had sufficiently recovered to undertake the jour- 
ney. So in October, with two Frenchmen for companions 
and guides, he set out upon the trip. They slowly pulled 
their canoe along the shore, the priest walking much of the 
time, to vary the monotony and to relieve his sickness, which 
returned upon him and seemed worse in the cramped posi- 
tion in the boat. Finally, upon the fourth of December they 
pulled into the Chicago river, which was frozen to the depth 
of half a foot. Here Marquette was so much worse it was 

37 



impossible to go farther. Making a rude sledge, his com- 
panions, aided by some friendly Pottawattomies, drew him 
over the ice to a place about five miles from the shore of the 
lake, and here, building a rude hut for shelter, they decided 
to winter. So here, upon the very site of our Chicago, out 
somewhere on the west branch of our river, this great man, 
heroic in his courage and faith, passed the dreary winter 
of 1674-5, far from his home and far from even the rude 
conveniences of life, yet happy and serene, waiting for what 
might yet be in store for him to do or endure. When spring 
came Marquette was better and they proceeded slowly upon 
their way. They spent eleven days in reaching the Kas- 
kaskia village. The people here received him with every 
demonstration of joy. He taught them for a few days, 
establishing among them the mission of the Immaculate 
Conception, then calling them all together in the open air 
upon the plain, he preached to them his farewell sermon 
and gave them his parting advice and blessing. He felt that 
he had only a few weeks longer to live, and wished, if he 
might, to reach St. Ignace in time to die. Many of the 
Kaskaskia Indians accompanied him almost to the lake, 
showing him every token of love possible to their rude 
natures. Crossing the portage to the Chicago river, they 
entered the lake, and, in order to reach St. Ignace, they 
wound around the southern end of the lake and up its 
eastern shore. The journey was slow. Father Marquette 
was daily growing weaker. Near the spot where the city of 
Ludington, Michigan, now stands, they pulled their boats to 
shore. It was the good father's last landing. About mid- 
night, sheltered by a rude hut of bark, gently talking and 
praying with the men who had been his companions, he 
quietly passed away. It was May 18, 1675. The next 
spring, some Indians, to whom Marquette had preached the 
gospel way over on the west end of Lake Superior, came to 
his grave in the woods and, disinterring the body, cleaned 
the bones after the Indian fashion, and reverently carried 

38 



them to the mission of St. Ignace, where they found resting- 
place in the httle chapel. 

We have spent so much time upon this narrative because 
it seems that here v^e have a character that measured up to 
the full height of a type among the missionary explorers 
who opened up the interior of this country to civilization 
and settlement. No one, young or old, can study the life 6f 
Marquette without profit, and to us who live in the valley of 
the fertile rivers and along the great lake which his canoe 
threaded in his weary journeys, his name and life should be 
household themes. 



39 



CHAPTER IV 

THE STORY OF LASALLE 

Father Marquette died on the eighteenth of June, 1673. 
His bones had been lying for four summers under the Httle 
chapel where his loving followers had placed them in 1676, 
when one bright autumn morning the people of St. Ignace 
were startled by the appearance of a ship with sails ap- 
proaching the beach. Savages, missionaries and traders 
gazed in astonishment at it as it swept proudly up to a 
place of anchorage. Then a discharge of cannon from her 
sides sent the frightened savages off on a run for shelter 
from this new engine of destruction which thus announced 
the advent of a floating fortress upon the Great Lakes. On 
board this ship were two of the most remarkable men ever 
sent from France to the New World. These men were 
LaSalle and his Italian-born lieutenant, Henri de Tonti. 

It would be too long a story to tell of all of LaSalle's 
experiences in Canada and around the lakes and rivers east 
of Michigan. Let it suffice to say that he came to Canada 
in 1666, the same year as Marquette. He had been educated 
for the priesthood but had chosen to turn aside for the life 
of an explorer and trader. He had probably discovered the 
Ohio river, and had possibly gone as far as Michigan, and 
perhaps had been on the Illinois river before we meet him 
on this September morning casting anchor on the beach at 
St. Ignace. He was one of the most unfortunate men in 

40 



all history. From the time we are first introduced 
to him until the day of his death his ill-fortune seldom 
varied. In all his career, from 1666, when he first landed 
in Canada, until 1687, when he was assassinated by a faith- 
less follower in the swamps of Texas, we read of a con- 
tinuous series of disasters. He seems to have been gifted 
with the fatal quality of making enemies of all with whom 
he came in contact, except the wild Indians of the forest. 
Even the rosy, fat priest. Father Hennepin, whom he 
brought with him on this expedition, turned against him, 
lied about him when living and attempted to steal his laurels 
when dead. His brother, another priest, annoyed him, 
obstructed him, followed him from place to place, and in 
the last scene of his career was little better than an accom- 
plice in his death. Yet, in spite of financial disasters, of the 
desertion by friends, of losses by fires and flood, of wander- 
ings through trackless forests and amid freezing swamps 
for days together; in spite of sickness and of enemies, of 
betrayals and shipwreck, this remarkable man persevered in 
his original purpose until he had threaded this vast country 
from the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi back 
and forth several times, handing down to the future a 
record of endurance and heroism which his own times could 
neither understand nor appreciate. So far as is known, the 
only two human beings who were true to him in life and in 
death were his trusty lieutenant, the Italian Tonti, and his 
faithful Mohegan hunter, Nika. 

At Niagara, just above the falls, LaSalle had built his 
ship, the Griffin, of forty tons' burden, and provided her 
with five cannon. He intended to use her to aid in carrying 
on a trade in furs along the Lakes and to convey the supplies 
he might need from Canada to the foot of Lake Michigan. 
The great enterprise he had on his mind was to follow the 
Mississippi to its mouth, then to establish a line of forts and 
settlements from the Lakes to the Gulf, gathering the 
Indians into a great confederacy for trade. It was a great 

41 



scheme. If the jealousies of white men had been no more 
bitter than the enmities of the red men, he might have 
accompHshed his purpose within a few years. 

The Griffin had brought her first load successfully to 
St. Ignace. Here she took on what furs the agent of 
LaSalle had stored at that place, thence proceeded to Green 
Bay, where she received sufficient furs to load her. At 
this place LaSalle turned her over to the pilot to be taken 
back to Niagara, where she was to be unloaded, and, taking 
on new supplies, was to meet him at the foot of Lake 
Michigan. 

On the eighteenth of September, 1679, the Griffin turned 
to the east on her homeward trip. LaSalle never saw her 
more. Whether wrecked in a storm, sunk by accident or 
design, the prey of the elements or of his enemies, LaSalle 
never knew. Her valuable cargo was lost. 

With the things they had taken from the Griffin for use 
in their trip, they loaded their canoes and, dividing into 
two parties, started down the lake. LaSalle was to go by 
the western shore of Lake Michigan, along the same route 
taken some years before by Marquette, while Tonti with 
most of the men was to go by the eastern shore. They were 
to meet at a point designated near the foot of the lake. 
LaSalle journeyed down the lake, passed the Chicago river, 
and, skirting the shore-line at the end of the lake, arrived 
at the mouth of the St. Joseph river. Here he should have 
met Tonti, but it was twenty days before Tonti arrived after 
a very difficult journey down the lake. While waiting, 
LaSalle built a fort, called Fort Miami, at the mouth of the 
St. Joseph. This was to be his way-station between the 
Illinois country and the head of the Great Lakes. They 
waited here long enough for the Griffin to put in an appear- 
ance, but as she did not come, LaSalle determined to pro- 
ceed as they were. Going up the St. Joseph river until 
they came to the bend, they shouldered their freight and 
their canoes, and in this way crossed the portage to the 

42 



sources of the Kankakee river. There were thirty-three in 
the party at this time. 

It was on the third day of December, 1679, that they set 
out for the IlHnois from Fort Miami. After reaching 
the stream of the Kankakee their journey was not very 
difficult. The country through which they passed was 
attractive and pleasant, but at this time of the year game 
was scarce, so they suffered for food part of the time. In 
a few days they were floating between the bluffs at the 
present site of Ottawa, where the Fox river empties into the 
Illinois. Soon they came to the beautiful plain where Utica 
now stands, bordered on the south by high bluffs, the most 
notable point of which was the great rocky bluff known to 
us as Starved Rock. Here, spread out on the plain, was 
an Indian village. Hennepin says he counted four hundred 
and sixty lodges. They were made long like covered 
baggage-wagons, each one of them housing several fami- 
lies. A framework of poles was covered by woven mats, 
and the interior was divided into parts for the different 
families by stretching mats across from side to side. An 
open place in the center was left for the common fire, and a 
hole in the roof permitted a part of the smoke to escape. 

When LaSalle and his party landed at this village, during 
Christmas week of 1679, not a sign of life could be seen. 
There were the houses and all the indications of a populous 
town, but the people were not to be found. They had gone, 
as was their custom,, upon their annual hunting expedition. 
LaSalle was in need of food, and was much disappointed at 
not finding the Indians. They hunted about until they dis- 
covered the place where the Indians had buried their corn. 
LaSalle took what he needed, leaving in its place hatchets, 
beads and other things to pay for the corn. They then 
pushed on down the river. On the first of January they 
reached Peoria lake. Along this lake he met some of the 
Indians belonging to the village beside the rock. He 
explained what he had done in taking the corn, and satisfied 

43 



their demands. He gained permission from the Indians to 
build a fort and a ship on the river, but they were not very 
friendly, and, fearing to remain among them, LaSalle took 
his men a little below the lake, and there on the bank of 
the river selected a spot on a slight elevation upon which to 
erect his fort. This fort, built of logs and surrounded by a 
palisade, he called Crevecoeur, the fort of the broken heart. 
He had given up all hope of hearing from his ship, the 
Griffin. He learned through a messenger that his creditors 
were seizing his property in Canada, and his men about him 
were growing discontented and sullen. It was a dark time, 
and Crevecoeur was a fitting name for the fort, the first 
built on the soil of Illinois. It was better named than he 
even then dreamed. 

Six of his men had already deserted. He began building 
a large boat, expecting to sail it down to the Mississippi 
and thence to the Gulf. This kept his people busy. He 
decided to return to Canada for additional supplies. In the 
meantime he decided to send Father Hennepin upon an 
exploring expedition down to the mouth of the Illinois 
and thence up the Mississippi. The adventures of Hennepin 
were thrilling and entertaining. Had he been honest, his 
name might have come down to us only second to that of 
his great leader in the expedition. 

It was the third of March, 1680, when LaSalle started on 
that long journey of fifteen hundred miles through the path- 
less wilderness with no one to guide him. With his Indian 
hunter and four Frenchmen, the journey was begun. The 
river was frozen, so most of the way they had to carry their 
canoes or drag them over the snow. At the village by the 
Rock he found the people still absent, but he examined the 
location of the Rock and at the first opportunity sent word 
back to Tonti to occupy the place and build a fort on its top. 
On March 23 they reached the mouth of the Calumet river, 
and on the 24th the mouth of the St. Joseph, where he 
found two men awaiting him in the fort. Here he learned 

44 



of the total disappearance of the Griffin. He sent these two 
men on to Tonti with word to fortify the Rock while he 
pushed on to Canada. 

On this trip many times they were forced to wade through 
snow waist-deep for days together. Sometimes they were 
obliged to sleep for several nights in succession upon the 
open prairie with nothing with which to build a fire. Their 
clothes, wet with rain and snow, if taken off for the night, 
froze stiff so they could not put them on in the morning. 
Yet in sixty-five days from starting they drew up at Fort 
Frontenac. 

We shall not pursue the details of LaSalle's experiences 
with his creditors nor his efforts to get money and supplies. 
It was enough that he succeeded, and on the tenth of 
August, with twenty-five men, started back for the Illinois 
country to join Tonti. This time he went by the way of 
Georgian Bay and the Straits of Mackinac. When he 
reached his fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph he found it 
destroyed. He heard rumors of a war party of Iroquois 
Indians. He hastened on to find Tonti, fearing he might 
have met with disaster. They made their way down the 
Illinois river as rapidly as they could. Where it had been 
so quiet on their previous trip they now found a multitude 
of Hving creatures. The prairies were filled with herds of 
buffaloes. Wild game was abundant on every hand. They 
came to the Rock, but LaSalle looked in vain for some 
sign of a palisade or other indication of Tonti's work. They 
came to the village of the Illinois ; here destruction of the 
worst type presented itself. Every hut had disappeared. 
Nothing but the blackened and burned remnants of the poles 
of the four hundred and sixty huts remained to tell that a 
great village had been there only a few weeks before. 

Worse than that, they found the ground covered with the 
bodies of the dead. Even the graves had been broken open, 
and the bones had been scattered about and the skulls set 
up on stakes. They looked in vain for signs of Frenchmen 

45 



among the dead. Leaving three men hid with most of their 
suppHes, LaSalle, with the rest of his party, pushed down 
the river. They found that the IlHnois had retreated down 
the west side of the river, while their enemies, the Iroquois, 
had followed on the opposite bank. Their camps had been 
made opposite each other as the retreat progressed. They 
came to the Fort Crevecoeur. It also was in ruins. There 
were no signs to tell them what had become of Tonti. They 
continued their way down the river. Near its mouth they 
found that the Illinois had abandoned their women and had 
fled. The Iroquois had captured something like a thousand 
women and children. Many of them they had tied to the 
stake and killed with horrible torture. Some of them they 
had eaten. The awful scenes were on every hand. LaSalle 
continued until, on the sixth day of December, 1680, they 
floated out into the Mississippi. This was the first LaSalle 
had seen of the great river of which he had dreamed by day 
and night through so many weary months. But he could 
not stop now. He must needs return at once; the ruins 
behind him must be repaired, and the lost Tonti must be 
sought. On the eleventh of December he was back at the 
ruined village beside the Rock. Here they found the three 
men they had left with the supplies, and, collecting a quan- 
tity of half-burned corn from the ruins of the village, they 
started on their return up the river. On the sixth of January 
they reached the junction of the Kankakee with the Illinois, 
and here LaSalle discovered in the woods a piece of tree 
that had been cut with a saw. He was delighted, as he 
understood from this that Tonti must have passed this way 
and was probably safe. The river was frozen, so they left 
their canoes and proceeded on foot toward St. Joseph. It 
was very cold. Snow fell nineteen days in succession as they 
waded across one hundred and twenty miles of open prairie. 
They were half starved and almost worn out when at last 
they reached Fort Miami, where they found one of LaSalle's 
lieutenants with twelve men who had reached this place and 

46 



were awaiting some word from him before advancing. They 
had repaired the fort and had gathered plenty of fuel and 
provisions, but they had heard no word from Tonti. 

What had become of Tonti? When LaSalle left him the 
previous March his men at once became mutinous. They 
had lost faith in the success of LaSalle, and did not believe 
they would ever get pay for the time they had put in with 
him. Some of them deserted, while others were surly and 
discontented. Then came the word from LaSalle to fortify 
the Rock. Tonti set out to do this with part of the men, 
leaving the others at the fort. No sooner was he gone than 
part of the men deliberately dismantled the fort, threw the 
forge and tools into the river, destroyed everything they 
could, and left the place. The three or four trusty men 
left hurried up the river to inform Tonti. Tonti made a 
trip down the river, recovered the forge and part of the 
tools, and carried them back to the village by the Rock. To 
avoid all suspicion on the part of the Indians, Tonti took 
up his residence in a hut in the midst of the savages. Here 
he brought all that was left of their supplies, and here, with 
his half dozen companions, lived with the Indians during the 
summer. 

Early in the fall, without warning or suspicion, an 
alarmed scout brought word to the village that the Iroquois 
were coming, only a day's march away; and, what was 
worse, he reported that they were led by Frenchmen and 
that one of the leaders was LaSalle. Tonti did all that 
he could to convince them that it could not be true, and 
offered to go out with them to fight the Iroquois. The 
angry Indians sacked his hut, took all his supplies, including 
the forge and tools, and threw them into the river. By 
great tact and courage, Tonti saved the lives of his party. 
But the Iroquois were at hand ; the attack was made. Tonti 
rushed in between the contending hosts and tried to bring 
about a cessation of the fight. After a parley with the 
Iroquois an agreement was reached ; but when the Iroquois 

47 



found what an easy victory they might win, they were very 
angry, and broke the treaty, telling Tonti and his compan- 
ions to leave the country at once. Tonti could do no more 
for his friends, the Illinois Indians; they were doomed to 
certain defeat; so, stealing quietly away with a canoe, they 
set off up the river to find LaSalle. Unfortunately, they 
went by the way of the Chicago river and Green Bay, while 
LaSalle was on the opposite side of the lake. Months after- 
ward they met at Michillimackinac. 

It would seem that LaSalle was ruined and that he would 
give up in despair. But he was not thus made. His 
courage was beyond measure. 

On December 21, 168 1, we find LaSalle and Tonti with a 
party of twenty-three Frenchmen and about a score of 
Indians once again starting from Fort Miami for the Illinois 
country. He had been carrying on negotiations with the 
various Illinois tribes, trying to persuade them to settle again 
at the old village, while he should fortify the Rock and 
act as their protector against the Iroquois Indians. He was 
now starting out to fulfill his part of the agreement. It 
was the dead of winter, and their canoes and luggage and 
the sick had to be placed on sledges and dragged over the 
snow. Thus they crossed the site of Chicago and the divide 
between the lake and the Desplaines river. They reached 
the site of the Illinois village, but found it still deserted. 
They proceeded on down the river, past Fort Crevecoeur 
and on to the Mississippi, and then on and on, and still on, 
until on the ninth of April, 1682, their boats passed out of 
the river into the surging waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 
LaSalle had attained the long-desired dream. He had fol- 
lowed the great river, of which all Europe had heard so 
many rumors, to its mouth. He divided his party into 
three sections, and each taking a different branch, all came 
together at the mouth of the river, proving that it emptied 
into the gulf by at least three channels. Here LaSalle with 
great ceremony took possession of the country drained by 

48 



the great river and all its tributaries in the name of King 
Louis of France, and named the valley Louisiana. 

Then began the journey back up the river, leaving behind 
them a post upon which had been nailed the arms of France 
pounded out of an old copper kettle. On the way, LaSalle 
became sick from a fever and had to stay for months at an 
extemporized fort, Prud Homme, near the present site of 
Natchez. He sent Tonti on to go to Canada to report the 
result of his venture and to see that an account was sent to 
the king. 

In December of the same year, 1682, LaSalle and Tonti 
were at the village of the Illinois. Here they carried out 
the original purpose of fortifying the Rock. They brought 
all the supplies they had or could gather to the Rock, erected 
a fort on its top, and surrounded it with a palisade. The 
Indians, gathering confidence because of the fort, began 
to collect at the village again, until in the shadow of the 
Rock, now named Fort St. Louis, it was estimated that over 
twenty thousand Indians had their tents pitched. Here 
was the best fortified place established by LaSalle in the 
present state of Illinois. Here we might leave him, for in 
the spring of 1683 he left Fort St. Louis, intending to go to 
Canada, and thence to France to interest the king in his 
projects. He never saw his Fort St. Louis again. 

LaSalle made his way to France, persuaded the king to 
approve and aid him in his plans, and finally, in July, 1684, 
left France, with four ships and ample supplies, intending 
to enter the mouth of the Mississippi, establish a colony, 
and then ascend to Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. His usual 
bad luck followed him. The leaders quarreled. The vessels 
missed the mouth of the river. They landed four hundred 
miles west of the river. Three of the ships were wrecked, 
the fourth finally returned to France, leaving LaSalle with 
about a hundred of his colonists in an unknown country, 
which has since proved to have been the coast of the 
present state of Texas. Here they suffered and many of 

49 



them died from fevers and other diseases, LaSalle vainly 
trying to find the river. 

Finally, about the first of January, 1687, LaSalle deter- 
mined to make a desperate attempt to reach the river, then 
proceed to Canada and send v^ord to France, that help might 
be sent to the lost colony. With a small party he set out 
and had proceeded as far as the Trinity river, when dissen- 
sions broke out among the members of the party, and 
LaSalle v^^as v^aylaid and treacherously shot to death. There 
died with him in as foul a manner his faithful Indian hunter, 
Nika, his nephew, and another companion. A few of his 
party reached the Illinois, went on to Canada and returned 
to France. Of the remnant of the colony left in Texas, not 
one escaped to tell the tale of their sufferings and disasters. 
Months afterwards, Tonti, not knowing his leader was dead, 
set out to seek him in the wilds of Texas and came upon 
the ruins of the place that had sheltered them. All had 
been killed by Indians. 

Thus ends the story of LaSalle so far as the country con- 
nected with Illinois has to do. He was a brave, patient, 
much suffering man. He opened the way for the French 
settlers to enter the Mississippi valley both by way of the 
north and of the south. He deserved a title of nobility and 
great wealth from his country ; instead, he was denied even 
a grave after his death at the hands of villainous assassins 
beside the murky river in the dreary wilderness near the 
Gulf. 



SO 



CHAPTER V 

FRENCH OCCUPATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 

LaSalle was assassinated in the southern wilderness 
early in 1687. Tonti held his post on the Rock, called Fort 
St. Louis, protecting the Indian tribes that had been induced 
to settle in the neighborhood, and waiting for reinforce- 
ments from the home country. The reinforcements never 
came. France was not a successful colonizing country. The 
king and the French cabinet did not realize until it was for- 
ever too late the value of their interests in the New World. 

When Father Marquette visited the Kaskaskia Indians 
prior to his death, he established among them the "Mission 
of the Immaculate Conception." This mission was con- 
tinued until the French power disappeared from the 
Mississippi valley. 

In 1698 the French king sent out a colony under one 
d'lberville, a Canadian, who had promised to take posses- 
sion of the mouth of the Mississippi and colonize it. Iber- 
ville arrived in the Gulf near the mouth of the Mississippi 
in the month of February or March, 1698. While exploring 
the inlets and trying to determine the best place for a settle- 
ment, one of his men found an Indian chief with a blue cloak 
and what he called a ''wonderful medicine," a piece of 
speaking-bark. The man traded a hatchet for it and found 
that it was a letter from Tonti to LaSalle, written thirteen 
years before. When LaSalle was struggling in the mazes 

51 



of the Texas swamps, striving in vain to rediscover the great 
river, Tonti, hearing that he had left France with his colony, 
went down the river to meet him. He went to the mouth 
of the river and sought for days to locate him, then gave up 
the effort. But he gave an Indian chief a cloak and wrote 
a letter to LaSalle, leaving it with the Indian to be delivered 
should he chance to meet the white man. After thirteen 
years the letter was placed in the hands of a Frenchman, 
but the one for whom it was intended and to whom it would 
have meant so much had been silenced forever. 

Iberville finally decided to establish himself at the place 
now called Biloxi. In April, 1699, they built a fort at this 
place. Iberville soon after returned to France, and the 
control of the colony fell into the hands of his younger 
brother, Bienville. On one of his exploring expeditions 
Bienville found some Indians, Chickasaws, who had been 
trading with the English, and with the help of Englishmen 
had fought a battle with some other Indians. This was 
startling news to the French. It is worth noting in our 
outline of the early occupation of the country. It tells us 
that at that early day the English settlers were finding their 
way through and around the southern Alleghanies. You 
remember that Joliet reported that in his explorations in 
1673 he had met some Indians with either English or Span- 
ish arms in their hands. The French soon had occasion to 
meet some of these pioneer English. 

In 1700 three things happened which we shall do well to 
make a note of. First, a member of the colony at Biloxi, a 
man by the name of La Sueur, with a two-masted vessel 
sailed up the Mississippi from the Gulf to Lake Pepin. 
There he built a fort, killed four hundred buffalo, traded 
with the Indians and carried back to Biloxi a boat-load of 
blue mud, believing it to contain valuable ore. This was 
the first boat of any size to ascend the river. Second, Bien- 
ville moved his settlement from Biloxi to the present site of 
Mobile. Third, that year Tonti, discouraged with his work 

52 



at the Rock and threatened by hostile tribes, persuaded the 
Kaskaskia Indians to move down the Mississippi where the 
French might still protect them. The Indians moved, but 
upon reaching the land near the mouth of the Kaskaskia 
river and finding it a goodly land and unoccupied, they de- 
cided to pitch their tents there instead of following Tonti 
to the gulf. This explains the change in our Indian map, 
where we found the Illinois Indians crowded upon a small 
territory along the Kaskaskia. Tonti went on down the 
river and joined the colony of Bienville at Mobile. It is 
said that he died there of yellow fever the next year. 

In 1792 one Juchereau, a trader from Montreal, estab- 
lished a trading post just above the present site of Cairo. In 
the course of a few years he built a tannery there and 
dressed buffalo hides and shipped them down the Mississippi 
river, as well as up the Ohio toward Montreal. Finally with 
thirty thousand buffalo skins on hand he became frightened 
and ran away, leaving this vast stock of skins to spoil. Ex- 
ploring parties went up the Missouri river and the Ar- 
kansas and wandered over the intervening territory in search 
for precious metals. 

This was not the order of people of which profitable col- 
onies are made. In 171 2 the king, disgusted with the efforts 
to colonize under the Royal patronage, turned the whole 
matter over to Anthony Crozat, a wealthy French merchant, 
who undertook to make settlements on business principles 
and to manage the colony for fifteen years. It was his pur- 
pose to search for mines and to protect the French posses- 
sions from the Spanish and English. The story of the colony 
from 1712 to 1717 is a repetition of failures, of vicious and 
dishonest conduct, and of treacherous dealings with Indians 
and whites alike. In 1717 Crozat gave up the task. It was 
too much for him to manage according to business prin- 
ciples. 

We come now to one of those remarkable speculative phe- 
nomena that have visited from time to time every civilized 

53 



community in the history of the world. The outlines of the 
story are well worth a little time and attention. 

John Law, a renegade from England, who had been tried, 
convicted and sentenced to be hung, escaped and made his 
way to France. He was versatile in expedients and a fas- 
cinating talker. He was a gambler, and it is said intro- 
duced the game of faro upon the continent of Europe. But 
in time he established, as the result of his gambling, a bank 
in the city of Paris. He at once became a leading financial 
adviser of the King Regent. (Louis XV. was then a child 
about six years of age.) Louis XIV. had died, leaving the 
government in debt about sixteen million dollars. Law 
came forward with a scheme for raising this money. He 
recommended the issuing of paper money based upon the 
real estate of the nation. One million dollars of paper was 
to be issued for every two million dollars worth of real 
estate. Soon there was an abundance of money. Prices 
at once rose and a general prosperity beamed upon the 
land. Law became famous as a financier. 

In September, 1717, he brought into the market his great 
scheme. This was known as the Mississippi Company. Its 
object was to colonize the Mississippi valley and exploit it 
for its precious metals and diamonds. A great commerce 
was to be carried on between this country and Europe. 
Pamphlets were distributed telling of all the wonders of 
this far-away land. No western town boomer of the nine- 
teenth century ever dared to lie with the brazen effrontery 
shown by these circulars of John Law. It was even said 
the country grew flowers in whose cups the dewdrops of 
the night would crystallize into diamonds. Gold was to be 
found in abundance in every stream. The sediment in the 
waters of the Mississippi contained enough to make every 
man, woman and child rich. Bars of gold, said to have 
been thus collected, and diamonds said to have been formed 
in the flowers, were placed on exhibition in the shop win- 
dows. Then the stock of the company was placed on sale. 

54 



Men and women fought with each other for places in the 
lines where they might buy the stock. Thousands of people 
flocked to the ships eager to be transported to the new field 
of wealth. 

When the tide of those who were anxious to cross over 
the ocean began to wane, the prisons were opened and the 
streets were swept of their riffraff to be sent out to colonize 
the valley of paradise and coin wealth for themselves and 
for the lucky holders of stock at home. Of such material 
were the French possessions in the lower Mississippi peo- 
pled. In 171 8, Bienville established a colony at the present 
site of New Orleans and laid out the beginnings of the most 
important city in the southern part of the valley. In the 
five years from 171 7 to 1722 the Mississippi Company sent 
out seven thousand settlers and seven hundred slaves to 
Louisiana. Then the bubble burst. Ruin came upon thou- 
sands of homes in Europe. Millions upon millions of dol- 
lars were lost, and John Law fled for his life from France 
with nothing left of his great fortune. The thousands who 
had fought for places in the lines to buy stock and who 
deified Law were almost beggared in the overwhelming 
collapse, and of course they charged up all their grievances 
against Law. 

In the great valley of the Mississippi prosperity came 
out of the misfortunes of Europe. The people were here, 
and they had been convinced, after years of fruitless search- 
ing and suffering, that there were no diamonds in the petals 
of the flowers and there was no gold in the sediment of the 
Mississippi. They had learned, however, that there were 
riches to be earned by cultivating the soil, and that any one 
with reasonable industry could become an independent 
householder in this country. So the army of immigrants that 
had come from all the diverse elements of French life set 
themselves to work to organize a form of society that might 
be permanent and agreeable. In the early immigration 
there were many more men than women, and to sup- 

55 



ply the deficiency shiploads of young women were 
brought over to be bought for wives. In this way began 
many of the "first families" of Louisiana. Many a proud 
dame of the South can trace her ancestry back to the time 
when a Mississippi colony immigrant met a young adven- 
turess on the levee of the new city of New Orleans and 
there began family life. 

During all this time what was going on further up the 
river? It is in this up-river country that we are chiefly 
interested. We have stated that in 1718 Bienville had es- 
tablished a permanent colony at New Orleans. Two years 
later one of his lieutenants, Major Pierre Boisbriant, led a 
colony of over a hundred people up the river to some six- 
teen miles above Kaskaskia and there built a fort, calling it 
Fort Chartres. Chartres landing is still pointed out on the 
river where this fort was built. In 1 721 Kaskaskia had 
risen to the dignity of a parish. In 1722 the first land war- 
rant known to the real estate records of Illinois was issued 
by Boisbriant. In 172 1 Francois Renault, who in 1720 
brought the first negro slaves to Illinois, took two hundred 
miners and five hundred slaves to the point where Galena 
now stands and began operating the lead mines at that 
place. These mines are still furnishing profitable employ- 
ment to hundreds of men. In the same year, 1721, a college 
and a monastery were established at Kaskaskia, and about 
the same time Fort Chartres became the head of the political 
and social life of the upper part of the valley. Cahokia, 
Prairie du Rocher and St. Phillippe were laid out in the 
near vicinity of Fort Chartres. 

If we look across the state we shall find that, after the 
Illinois Indians with Tonti had departed from Fort St. 
Louis, the portage by way of Chicago had become dangerous 
and was not much used by the traders between Canada and 
the valley settlements. Instead of that they came by way 
of Lake Erie, then up the Maumee river, and made a port- 
age to the headwaters of the Wabash, thence down the Ohio. 

56 



This meant the building of forts along this route. The 
portage from the Maumee began where Fort Wayne now 
stands. The post on the upper Wabash was called Fort 
Ouatanon. LaFayette, Indiana, now stands on this spot. 
In 171 5 a boat-load of fifteen thousand skins was collected 
on the Wabash and successfully taken down the river to 
New Orleans. A fort and trading-post was established at 
Vincennes in 1722, the very year in which John Law's bub- 
ble broke over France. 

Slowly but steadily the French had extended their settle- 
ments and trading-posts from the days of the early mission 
stations on the Great Lakes until the middle of the eighteenth 
century. A new era in the history of the valley was about 
to be ushered in. Before taking it up we shall briefly recall 
the position of the French and quote something of their 
manner of life. 

Between 1673, the days of Marquette, and 1750, when 
the barrier of the Alleghanies was about to give way, pre- 
cipitating a flood of Anglo-Saxon home makers upon the 
valley, we have found forts or settlements or trading places 
established at various places along the northern lakes, at 
Miami (the St. Joseph river), at Fort St. Louis, at Peoria, 
at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Fort Chartres and other settlements 
near the mouth of the Kaskaskia; at Galena, at Cairo, and 
at many places down the river extending to New Orleans, 
then out on the gulf to Biloxi and Mobile ; at Niagara, at 
Fort Le Boeuf and a few other places leading into the Ohio 
valley. But notwithstanding all this array of settlements, it 
is necessary to repeat a caution, made some time ago, that 
these colonies did not mean anything like what the colonies 
on the Atlantic seaboard meant. After seventy-five years 
of colonization in the most fruitful valley in all the world, 
in a valley which is capable of furnishing food for twenty 
million of people, we find the total French population never 
to have exceeded at any one time ten thousand souls from 
the lakes to the gulf. This is surely a meager showing, and 

57 



when we further consider that this population in such a 
land was frequently dependent upon the home country for 
food to eat we are tempted to question whether after all they 
were of any more service to the world at large than the 
tribes of Indians they were attempting to displace. 

French writers of the period give us some glimpses of the 
manner of life among the people of these early settlements, 
which are entertaining and form a good background for the 
permanent setting of our story. We can quote but a few 
samples. 



From a letter written by an Ursuline nun at New Orleans 
to her father in 1727 : 

"I can hardly realize that I am on the banks of the Missis- 
sippi because there is here, in certain things, as much mag- 
nificence as in France. Gold and velvet stuffs are commonly 
used, although they cost three times as much as in Rouen. 
Corn-bread costs ten cents a pound, eggs fifty cents a 
dozen, milk fifteen cents a measure. We have pineapples — 
most excellent fruit — peas and wild beans, watermelons and 
potatoes, an abundance of figs, and pecans, walnuts and 
hickory nuts. There are also pumpkins. As to meat, we 
live on wild venison, wild geese and turkey, hares, chickens, 
ducks, teal, partridges and other game. The rivers abound 
in monstrously large fish. We eat bread made of half wheat 
and half rice. The dish most in favor is rice boiled in 
milk and what is known as sagamite, which consists of 
Indian corn pounded in a mortar and boiled in water and 
butter." 



One might think from this letter that in such a country 
a colony must thrive and at least be able to care for itself. 
Yet in 1709 in that very region provisions became so scarce 
that the whole colony was obliged to live on acorns and 
Bienville was obliged to disperse his soldiers and send them 
out among the Indians to get a living. 

58 



The following is from Monette: "The French on the 
Illinois were remarkable for their easy amalgamation with 
the red race in manners and customs. Their villages sprang 
up in long narrow streets. The houses were so close that 
the people could carry on conversations from their balco- 
nies." Each homestead was surrounded by its own rude 
picket fence. The houses were generally one story high, 
surrounded by sheds or galleries. The walls were con- 
structed of a rude framework, having upright corner posts 
and studs connected by numerous cross-ties. The spaces 
between were filled by straw and clay and plastered by hand 
with clay. 'The chimney was made in the same manner 
and of similar materials. There were four corner posts 
slanting toward the top and the cross pieces were filled in 
with clay." 

"A large field near by was fenced off for the common 
use." * * * "The season for plowing, harvesting, etc., 
was regulated by special enactments or by public ordinance, 
and took place at the same time in the several villages." 
* * * ''Even the form and manner of dooryards was 
regulated by public enactment." 

"The winter dress of the man was generally a coarse 
blanket capote, drawn over shirt and long vest which served 
both as a cloak and a hat, for the hood attached to the 
collar could be drawn over the head when it was cold. In 
summer the head was generally enveloped in a blue hand- 
kerchief in the form of a turban." 

"At the close of each year it was the custom of the young 
men to disguise themselves in old clothes, visit the several 
houses of the village, and engage in friendly dances with 
the inmates. This was understood as being an invitation for 
all the family to meet in a general ball, in which to watch 
the birth of the New Year. Large crowds assembled, carry- 
ing their own refreshments, and a merry time was the result. 
Another custom was general on January 6. By lot, four 
kings were chosen, each of whom selected for himself a 

59 



queen. These together perfected arrangements for an en- 
tertainment known as a king-ball. Towards the close of the 
first dance the old queens selected new kings, whom they 
kissed as the formality of introduction into the office. In a 
similar manner these kings chose new queens, and thus the 
gay time continued during the entire carnival, up to the 
week preceding Lent." 

"Separated by an immense wilderness from all civilized 
society, these voluntary exiles yet retained all the suavity and 
politeness of their race. It is a remarkable fact that the 
roughest hunter or boatman among them could, at any time, 
appear in a ball-room, or at a council fire, with the carriage 
and behavior of a well-bred gentleman. At the same time 
the French women were remarkable for the sprightliness 
of their conversation, and the grace and elegance of their 
manners." 

As late as 1750 a missionary at Kaskaskia wrote as fol- 
lows: "We have here whites, negroes and Indians, to say 
nothing of the cross-breeds. There are five French villages, 
and three of the natives, within a space of twenty-one 
leagues, situated between the Mississippi and another river 
called the Kaskaskia. In the five French villages there are, 
perhaps, eleven hundred whites, three hundred blacks, and 
some sixty red slaves, or savages. The three Indian towns 
do not contain more than eight hundred souls all told." 



60 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TRANSFER OF THE VALLEY FROM THE FRENCH TO THE 

ENGLISH 

In 1673 Marquette and Joliet found Indians near the mouth 
of the Arkansas river with guns in their hands. In 1700 
Bienville found Indians who had been engaged in a fight 
with English as allies. These were indications of a coming 
struggle. The French did what they could in their poor way 
to get ready for it. Among other things we learned that 
they located a great many emigrants in the Illinois country. 
Five villages sprang up around the Kaskaskia mission. In 
1720 Boisbriant led a colony of six hundred to the site of 
Chartres and there erected a fort. This fort became the 
strongest post on the Mississippi; perhaps it was the best 
built and best fortified place in America south of Canada. 
The fort was built at first with stone foundations, then ex- 
tended upward with palisades set in the stone-work. It en- 
closed about four acres of ground and became the strong- 
hold of the French in all that region. It was in the days of 
the Mississippi Company and things were being done on a 
lavish scale. Later than this, in 1750, when it seemed that 
a test of strength might soon come, Colonel McKarty was 
commissioned to rebuild this fort, making it still stronger. 
Over a million dollars was spent upon the works and their 
defenses. 

Wealthy people, as well as the vagabond classes, were 

61 



coming to the valley of the Mississippi, and fashionable and 
richly dressed mothers and daughters of French officers, 
soldiers and speculators were numerous, and set up a social 
life in harmony with their surroundings and inclinations. 
Gay companies of ladies and gentlemen rode to and fro 
among the villages stretched along the river bottoms, visit- 
ing, gossiping, arranging for parties and dances and out- 
ings, as if there were no work to be done any where in all 
their world. Dinners and balls and hunting parties were as 
common around old Fort Chartres as they were in Paris. 
French houses were built more and more imposing and 
commodious. The farms were chiefly tended by slaves and 
the Indians who were probably pressed into the service, as 
the Indian did not like farming any better than the French- 
man. No one pretended to live on the farm, but all lived 
in villages, giving opportunity for a social life. They had 
in the western colonies nothing of the sober and solemn 
traits found in the New England settlements, but every vil- 
lage had its frequent dances and outings. The French are 
a gay people. They went to church in the morning on the 
Sabbath as regularly as did the Puritan, but in the afternoon, 
when the church service was over and dinner was eaten, 
they went to their dancing or hunting or card playing. It 
was a gay life they lived, and nowhere were the character- 
istics of the French people better illustrated than in these 
settlements along the Mississippi around Kaskaskia in the 
Illinois country. 

Across the country on the Wabash was Fort Vincennes; 
and a little further to the north, at the portage from the 
Maumee, was the Fort Ouatanon. The people across the 
Alleghanies were noting all these things. They were begin- 
ning to cross over the mountains and the time was at hand 
to decide whether the discovery by Cabot and the treaty 
with the Iroquois were to stand for more than the discoveries 
by Marquette and Joliet and LaSalle and the settlements 
made by their countrymen. The English and the French 

e>2 



could not both abide in this valley, large as it was, and be 
at peace. The French were the aggressors in the actual 
conflict, hiring Indians to invade the frontier settlements 
in the New England colonies, paying for the scalps that were 
brought into the forts. They hoped to terrify the English 
and force them to abandon their outlying settlements and 
give up their fur trade with the Indians. The French cared 
little for settlements and farms, but they wanted the fur 
trade with the Indians to continue. The English, on the 
other hand, did not care so much for the trade, but they 
wanted to settle and open farms and clear the ground of 
useless timber. Of course where the English settled the 
hunting and trading were at an end. 

In 1748 the English decided that, instead of withdrawing, 
they were ready to push out across the mountains in earnest. 
The Ohio land company was formed, the king having prom- 
ised five hundred thousand acres of land in the Ohio country 
to the company upon certain conditions. 

The Washingtons were active directors and large stock- 
holders in this enterprise. They sent agents into the country 
across the mountains to inspect the land and select places 
favorable for settlements. Of course they found the French 
there ; then came the message from the Governor of Virginia 
to the commandant at Fort Venango, on the head waters of 
the Alleghany river, asking him by what right he was there 
and warning him to leave. You know how the history in- 
troduces this subject with George Washington in the fore- 
ground. Then came Fort Duquesne, then Braddock, then 
the French and Indian War in all its bitterness. There were 
all the campaigns against Duquesne, Niagara (LaSalle's old 
fort), Louisburg, Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Quebec, 
and all the side issues of Indian massacres. Your United 
States history tells you of Wolfe's victory on the plains of 
Abraham and how the French hero, Montcalm, died thank- 
ing God that he could not live to see the fort surrendered, 
while Wolfe was dying thanking God that the French were 

63 



running and he had won the victory. That was a great vic- 
tory indeed. It ended the war in America, for soon Mont- 
real was surrendered, then the French quit fighting, and in 
1763 a treaty of peace was signed in Paris. France had been 
most terribly worsted both in the New World and in the 
old, being forced to pay an enormous price for her defeat. 
All of her possessions east of the Mississippi river, including 
Canada, were given over to the British. By a secret treaty 
made with Spain, she gave all of her possessions west of the 
river and the Island of Orleans, including the city of New 
Orleans, to Spain. So when the war was ended, France did 
not have a foot of territory in all this great land. The lakes 
and rivers and forests which her heroic Frontenacs, Mar- 
quettes, LaSalles, Bienvilles and thousands of other daring 
Frenchmen had discovered and fortified and settled, after a 
fashion, passed forever from her grasp. 

From the Atlantic to the great river, England was now 
supreme. Legally, her colonists could go anywhere in all 
that region and make their homes. But when they tried to 
do this they found that there were still dangers and death 
in the way. The Indians must still be dealt with, and the 
English were not as skillful as the French in dealing with 
the Indian. It is a dark and bloody story, telling often of 
cruelty and treachery on the part of the English and of the 
awful penalty exacted by the merciless red man. It was 
during this period, between the French and Indian war and 
the beginning of the Revolution, that Pontiac, the great 
Indian chief, attempted to organize all the tribes from the 
lakes to the gulf into one great confederacy to wipe the 
English entirely out of the valley. The French encouraged 
the enterprise, and, while it did not succeed, it cost thousands 
of lives and much suffering. It has been estimated that in 
all the wars that have been carried on with the Indians 
from the beginning until now, five white men have been 
slain to every Indian. So far as we can read now, looking 
back over the past, every outbreak, every war with the 

64 



Indians, every massacre, was the outcome of some wrong 
committed by the whites against the red men. But all this 
your usual text-book in history will tell you ; we are chiefly 
interested in the things that happened in the Illinois country. 

The towns of Kaskaskia and Cahokia and the Fort Char- 
tres now belonged by treaty to the English. What hap- 
pened there? The war did not reach them, except that it 
is worth telling that it was a Captain Villiers who took a 
company of men from Fort Chartres in the Illinois country 
and, making his way up the Ohio and across the Mononga- 
hela and across a part of the Alleghanies, reached Fort 
Necessity and there forced Major George Washington from 
Virginia to surrender. When the news of this victory 
reached Fort Chartres they fired their guns and waved their 
flags and had dinners and dances without number. They 
did more than that. They loaded nine tons of flour on flat- 
boats and started them up the Ohio to feed the soldiers 
gathering at Fort Duquesne. So during the years of this 
war the French people in the Illinois country sent bread- 
stuffs and lead for bullets to the French soldiers in the field. 

You remember that Fort Chartres had been rebuilt before 
this time. It was now a solid stone fortification eighteen 
feet high, with forty-eight loop holes, through which guns 
or cannons might be fired. Soldiers' quarters, store-houses, 
powder magazines and other necessary buildings were 
erected within the enclosure. "Now," said they, **let Eng- 
land and Virginia come and take it if they can." But never 
a gun was fired against this mighty fortress. It stood in 
the wind and weather until the Mississippi river, which it 
was built to defend, gradually ate the foundations out from 
under it, and this pride of the Illinois French people was 
swallowed up in the muddy waters of the great river during 
a flood in 1772, three years before the beginning of the 
Revolution. 

For two years after the close of the French and Indian 
War the English did not reach Fort Chartres to take pos- 

6s 



session. The war with Pontiac kept them busy. He stood 
across the path fighting over again the battle of his French 
friends. During these two years there was Httle govern- 
ment in the Illinois villages, for after the treaty of peace 
the French governor left the fort with quite a large body 
of followers and made his way across the river to the Span- 
ish settlement at St. Louis. They preferred to be Spanish 
rather than English subjects. Pontiac, driven from the 
North after repeated defeats, took up his abode among the 
villages of Illinois. Finally, on October lo, 1765, a British 
company of about one hundred and twenty Highlanders 
reached Fort Chartres and there without opposition took 
possession of it. The lilies of France were lowered and 
for the first time on Illinois soil the flag of England was 
flung to the breeze. There was no disposition to molest 
the French settlers in the Illinois country. They were as- 
sured that they might continue on in their work and wor- 
ship with full liberty of conscience and with a full recog- 
nition of all their civil rights. The English troops were 
withdrawn within a month, departing by the way of New 
Orleans for Philadelphia. 

No more British soldiers were sent into the Illinois coun- 
try. The civil government was administered by governors 
appointed by the English. Several of these governors were 
Frenchmen who had given their oaths of allegiance to 
England, and, being familiar with the people and their insti- 
tutions, carried on the government very much as it had 
been carried on under the French rule. 

In 1763, after the treaty of peace with France, but before 
the English had reached Fort Chartres, while Pontiac's 
war was in progress, and probably as a bribe to the Indians 
for ending the war, King George issued a proclamation 
dividing the territory of the British crown in America into 
five parts. There was East Florida, covering about the 
same area as is covered by the state of Florida now ; West 
Florida, taking a strip between the thirty-first parallel and 

66 



the gulf, extending from East Florida to the Mississippi 
river. We are not much interested in either of these divi- 
sions at the present time. To the north was the province 
of Quebec, which included both sides of the St. Lawrence 
river as far as to the Ottawa river, and extending from 
the present boundary of the United States to about half 
way to Hudson Bay. Then there was the division occupied 
by the thirteen colonies, and the fifth division, to be known 
as the Indian Territory, from the Mississippi river to the 
boundary of the colonies. This is the division in which we 
are interested. The early charters of the colonies called 
for all the land from "sea to sea," which came to be inter- 
preted, when the country was better known, as meaning 
from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. This proclamation of 
1763 therefore was cutting off from the colonies a part of 
what they thought of right belonged to them. But to make 
the matter as bad as it could be, the proclamation stated 
that no one should be permitted to make treaties with the 
Indians or to buy lands from them except in the name of 
the king, nor should any of the colonists presume to settle 
on any of the lands included within the Indian territory. 
The line between the Indian territory and the colonies was 
drawn down the divide of the Alleghany mountains. It 
began approximately with Lake Ontario, then ran south- 
ward along the ridge of the divide to the source of the 
Chattahooche river, thence along this river to the gulf. This 
would shut up the colonies to the limits they were trying 
to break through when the French and Indian war began. 
In fact it was to prevent just such limitations that the Ohio 
Company was formed and that George Washington had 
made his journey to Fort Venango, that Braddock had been 
sent upon his fatal expedition and that the colonists had 
given of their means and blood to drive the French from 
the valley. Here was one of the very first grievances that 
led to the War of the Revolution. This was a much more 
serious matter than the payment of a few pounds on tea 

67 



or stamped paper. The people of the colonies did not obey 
the proclamation, nor could they see how it could be obeyed 
if they were to continue to grow. Treaties continued to 
be made with the Indians. The chiefs of the Illinois made 
a grant of nearly all the lands now comprising the state of 
Illinois to a little group of people. After the Revolution the 
United States refused to ratify these treaties, although emi- 
nent English judges held that they were valid. 

In 1768 a court of justice was organized at Fort Chartres 
for the Illinois country. It consisted of seven judges and 
held its first session December 9, 1768. This was the first 
experience the French people had ever had with the jury 
system. Heretofore they had been governed arbitrarily by 
the governor, or the notary and the priest. They could not 
understand how a dozen farmers or blacksmiths or traders 
could interpret the laws or administer justice. They com- 
plained bitterly of the change and many of them withdrew 
to the Spanish side of the river. Finally, to satisfy the de- 
mands of this Illinois settlement of French people, a change 
was made in the boundaries. This change occurred in 1774, 
in what is known as the Quebec act. The Illinois country, 
including approximately all the country north of the Ohio 
river, was made a part of the Quebec territory, and the 
French system of laws was applied to all that territory. To 
the thirteen colonies this was an added insult. It roused 
their passions and called forth their denunciations as much 
as any single act ever passed by the British parliament. 
In the Declaration of Independence we read : *'For abol- 
ishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring 
province, establishing therein an arbitrary government and 
enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an ex- 
ample and a fit instrument for introducing the same abso- 
lute rule into these colonies." But this rule continued until 
the reorganization after the close of the Revolution. 

We can well understand how it happened with all the 
troubles about the Indian tribes, about the questions of 

68 



jurisdiction and the system of laws to be applied, about the 
questions of law as to whether deeds and grants and treaties 
made contrary to the proclamation of 1763 would be sus- 
tained when they came to a judicial investigation, that the 
Illinois country from 1763 to 1780 made little or no progress. 
Indeed there were fewer people in the Illinois country at 
the close of the Revolution than there were fifteen years 
before. 

But while the Illinois country during these years was 
making little gains in population, the country south of the 
Ohio, in the present states of Tennessee and Kentucky, 
was being peopled by a hardy race of pioneers. In the 
advance guard of the white invasion of that region was 
Daniel Boone, who as a young man had served as a teamster 
in Braddock's campaign. His story is one of the most 
interesting in our border annals. Kentucky was Virginia 
country, while Tennessee belonged to North Carolina. 
When the Declaration of Independence was signed there 
were probably three or four thousand people living within 
the borders of the present Kentucky, and perhaps a few 
more than that within the present limits of Tennessee. 
These border settlements had much to do with the next 
step in the history of our Illinois country. 



69 



CHAPTER VII 

THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY PASSES TO THE UNITED STATES 

Before taking up the subject directly we shall review briefly 
what we know of the early events connected with our Illi- 
nois history. 

We learned that in 1673 Joliet and Marquette, on their 
return trip from the Mississippi, turned into the Illinois 
river and followed it to the portage of the Desplaines, and 
then crossed over to Lake Michigan on their way to Green 
Bay. We know that on this trip they found a village of 
Indians, whom they called Kaskaskia Indians, near the 
present site of Utica. Father Marquette promised to return 
to them to preach the gospel. He did return the following 
year, after spending a whole winter, sick, in a poor hovel 
on the ground where a part of Chicago now stands, per- 
haps about five miles from the lake on the south branch of 
the river. The Chicago and Alton railroad has erected a 
stone monument of boulders to mark the vicinity of this 
winter camp. In 1907 the Chicago Association of Com- 
merce erected a mahogany cross to mark the supposed spot 
on the bank of the river, just south of Blue Island avenue. 
The monument of mahogany, fourteen feet high and twelve 
inches thick, was donated by Mr. Cameron L. Wiley. 
Father Marquette reached the Kaskaskia village on the 
Illinois and preached to the Indians. He established what 
he called a mission (a church) among them, calling it the 

70 



Mission of the Immaculate Conception. This mission was 
continued by one priest or another so long as the French 
held possession of the Illinois country, although it was after 
a time moved further south. This was the last visit of 
Marquette to the Illinois (1675). 

In 1679 came LaSalle and Tonti. LaSalle in his different 
trips crossed the state at least six times by way of the 
Illinois river, sometimes going by way of the Chicago river 
portage, sometimes by the Calumet, and sometimes by way 
of the Kankakee portage from the St. Joseph river. La- 
Salle built Fort Crevecoeur, near the present site of Peoria. 
It never was anything but a stockade and temporary stop- 
ping place, while the French occupied the country. He 
built and fortified Fort St. Louis on top of Starved Rock. 
Here Tonti held possession for some fifteen years, in close 
friendship with the Indians gathered around the rock. 

In 1700 Cahokia, a little below the present site of St. 
Louis, on the Illinois side of the river, was occupied by 
French priests and traders and at once became the nucleus 
of a French village. The same year Kaskaskia was settled 
by the French and Indians. We remember that it was at 
this time that Tonti wearied with waiting at the rock, per- 
suaded the Indians to move southward toward the French 
settlements. He got them as far as the present site of Kas- 
kaskia, named after them, and here they settled. In 1720 
Fort Chartres was established by a colony of men led by 
one, Boisbriant, from the Biloxi or New Orleans colony. 
Two or three other villages were settled on this same penin- 
sula, lying between the Mississippi river and the Kaskaskia. 
They contained the larger part of the French population 
south of Canada and north of New Orleans. We recall that 
as early as 1702 Juchereau established a trading station and 
built a tannery near the site of the present Cairo, and that 
in 1 72 1 Renault took two hundred miners and five hundred 
slaves to the site of Galena and began operating the lead 
mines. The line of travel between Canada and the lower 

71 




Mississippi changed after Tonti abandoned the fort on the 
rock, the trail leading by the way of Lake Erie and the 
Maumee river, where the portage was short, to the upper 
waters of the Wabash. So a fort, Ouatanon, on the present 
site of Lafayette on the Wabash, was built. As early as 
171 5 great cargoes of buffalo hides were shipped down the 
Wabash to New Orleans. 

In 1722-, the year the Mississippi bubble broke, a fort and 
settlement were established on the present site of Vincennes. 

72 



Then came the French and Indian War of 1754-1763. While 
this was in progress the French settlements in the Illinois 
country sent flour and lead to the French troops by way of 
the Ohio river. After the treaty of peace in 1763, came 
Pontiac's war, which made it impossible for the British 
government to take possession of its Illinois territory, so 
the French flag waved over Fort Chartres and a French 
officer was in charge until one day in October, 1765, a 
Scotch Highland company marched into the fort and the 
French flag was taken down and the British flag was hoisted 
in its place. 

Then we remember that following the treaty of peace 
the British king issued a proclamation making all the coun- 
try bounded by the Alleghany mountains, the Ohio and Mis- 
sissippi rivers and the lakes, an Indian territory, and for- 
bade any of the Atlantic colonies to send settlers into the 
territory. Then in 1774 this territory was added to the 
province of Quebec and the system of French laws was 
put into operation within its boundaries. We know that 
the King's proclamation did not keep such men as Daniel 
Boone and Kenton and McAfee, and hundreds of their 
kind, from crossing the mountains and making settlements 
in the western country. So by April 17, 1775, when the 
battle of Lexington was fought, there were two or three 
thousand settlers in the present territory of Tennessee and 
Kentucky. On the very day the news of the battle of Lex- 
ington reached the settlers in Kentucky a crowd of them 
were gathered together finishing a fort. The news of the 
battle so pleased them that they decided to call their new 
fort Fort Lexington. It stood on the site of the present 
city of Lexington, Kentucky. 

Among those who had gone back and forth along the 
mountain and river trails from Virginia to the Ohio and 
Kentucky country was a young man by the name of George 
Rogers Clark. He was a rover from boyhood. Like Wash- 
ington, he learned enough of mathematics to become a 

73 



surveyor, and he went into Kentucky, and perhaps into 
Tennessee, to follow his vocation. But he was warHke and 
loved the sound of fife and drum. There was frequent 
fighting along the border line, and George Rogers Clark 
was mixed up in several Indian skirmishes. Doubtless he 
would have added to his reputation more by staying out of 
some of these Indian raids than by taking part in them. 
But 1777 came. Burgoyne had surrendered his army at 
Saratoga. The French king had given his consent to an 
open alliance with the colonists and sent ships and men to 
aid them. Things began to look very bright to the Ameri- 
cans. George Rogers Clark knew that all the great country 
from the Ohio to the lakes and to the Mississippi was held 
by a few British troops stationed at Detroit, and a very few 
more, chiefly French militia, stationed at Kaskaskia and 
Vincennes. 

Patrick Henry was governor of Virginia. He was a 
close personal friend of George Rogers Clark. To him the 
young man went and proposed a plan for capturing all the 
Illinois country from the British before they could know 
what was going on. He wanted a permit to gather men and 
some supplies for such an expedition. Governor Henry 
agreed with him as to the desirability of the enterprise, but 
the state was so poor it could give him no supplies, and 
men were so badly needed for the army of Washington 
that he could not give him a permit to recruit a company 
for this expedition on the frontier. After weeks of persua- 
sion and argument, Clark finally secured from the governor 
an order for five hundred pounds of powder and permission 
to recruit a body of men west of the Blue Ridge mountains. 
It was a difficult task, but Clark was not easily discouraged. 
He finally found himself at Fort Washington, the present 
site of Cincinnati, Ohio, with a small body of recruits. He 
proceeded down the river as far as the present city of 
Lx)uisville ; after hearing the complaints of some of his men, 
none of whom knew upon what errand they were bound, 

74 



and letting all who wished return to their homes, he floated 
down the Ohio until he came to an old deserted fort called 
Fort Massac, about three miles below the present town of 
Metropolis, Illinois. Here he landed his force of a little 
less than two hundred men. Clark did not dare follow the 
Ohio and the Mississippi around to Kaskaskia lest the Eng- 
lish should discover him. His success depended upon his 
ability to surprise the garrison. At this time there were 
about two thousand people living at Kaskaskia. There was 
no English garrison there, but a body of French militia 




under command of one, Rocheblave, a Frenchman who had 
given his allegiance to the British. On the thirtieth of 
June, 1778, almost a year from the time Clark had begun to 
plan for this expedition, he left his flatboats on the Ohio 
and started for a trip across the country. The distance was 
ninety miles in a straight line. The way was partly through 
the woods and partly across the open prairie. A hunter 
whom they met agreed to guide them. After losing the way 
occasionally they reached the Kaskaskia river above the 
town about four o'clock on the afternoon of July 4. Here 

n 



they hid in the bushes until dark. Then they picked up 
some canoes and ferried themselves across the stream. 

Clark divided his men into three parts. Two were to 
enter the town from different directions while the third, 
under Clark, was to attack the fort and capture it with its 
garrison. All were to keep out of sight as far as possible 
until Clark should give the word that the garrison was cap- 
tured. They found the commandant, Phillipe Rocheblave, 
in bed asleep. When he waked, Clark was beside him and 
he was a prisoner in the hands of the Americans. Then 
the other companies marched through the streets of the 
town, firing their guns and yelling like Indians to frighten 
the inhabitants and make them believe that a large army 
had attacked them. Word was sent to the people that they 
must stay in their houses or they would be shot. They 
expected to be shot at any rate. The French people of 
Kaskaskia, and the Indians in that region as well, had long 
been familiar with the reputation of the Kentucky frontiers- 
men. They were called the Long Knives, and it was be- 
lieved that they gave no quarter, but killed and scalped all 
alike — men, women and children — whenever they went upon 
the warpath. So the poor simple French people thought 
their hour had come, and the Kentuckians did not try to 
relieve their fears that night. The town was taken. The 
commandant was a prisoner. He was defiant and saucy and 
insulting. Clark put hand-cuffs on him and in a few days 
sent him to Virginia as a prisoner. His slaves were con- 
fiscated and sold for two thousand five hundred dollars and 
the money was divided out among Clark's men. 

When the morning came. Father Gibault, the priest, with 
several of the old men of the village, called upon Clark to 
ask that before they were all separated one from another 
they might be permitted to gather in the little chapel and 
hold a service and bid each other good-bye. Then Clark 
looked astonished and asked what kind of men they sup- 
posed him and his soldiers to be. He told them that they 

76 



were not butchers nor savages. It was not their business 
to kill innocent men, women and children. They might go 
to their church or to their places of business just as they 
had always done. All he wanted was that they should give 
in their oath of allegiance to the government of Virginia. 

When the people learned this they were so overjoyed 
they wept on each other's shoulders, and they thought Clark 
was the best and most generous man they had ever heard of. 
The church bell was rung and the people flocked to the little 
church where the good news was published, and then they 
all took the oath of allegiance to Virginia, under whose 
authority Clark was acting. 

A detachment of Clark's men, with a number of recruits 
from the French at Kaskaskia were sent at once to Cahokia, 
and that town was surrendered without opposition, and the 
people took the oath of allegiance. So all the river towns 
which had cost the French so much money and sacrifice to 
establish, and which the British had won by treaty at the 
close of the French and Indian War, passed without a shot 
or the loss of a life into the hands of the Virginians, never 
to be held again by a foreign government. 

A few days later Clark sent the priest. Father Gibault, 
with a few Kaskaskia citizens, to Fort Vincennes to per- 
suade the people of that place to surrender the town to the 
Americans. The fort was defended at that time by French 
militia, no British soldiers being there. The errand was 
successful. The French, after hearing what had happened 
at Kaskaskia, very readily agreed to become American citi- 
zens. Clark afterward sent one of his officers. Captain 
Helm, with one other American, to take charge of the fort 
and administer its aflFairs in the name of Virginia. 

From the Ohio to the lakes the British did not have a set- 
tlement left. Word was soon carried to Detroit, to the 
great surprise and chagrin of General Hamilton, the com- 
mander there. He at once organized parties of Indians and 
sent them out to attack any of Clark's men wherever they 

77 



could find them. In the meantime he began organizing a 
force to retake the country from the Americans. Early in 
the winter he started from Detroit with his force. It was 
cold and he made slow progress. It was seventy-five days 
before he reached Vincennes. When they heard of his ap- 
proach all the French deserted Captain Helm, refusing to 
fight against the British. When Hamilton appeared before 
the fort he did not know how many men were within. He 
demanded that the fort be surrendered. Helm had charged 
a cannon with shot and it commanded the gate-way to the 
fort. He threatened to defend the place to the last, but in 
view of scarcity of provisions he consented to surrender, 
provided he might be allowed the honors of war. To this 
Hamilton readily agreed. So the American colors were 
taken down. The British were drawn up in two lines to 
receive the surrendered garrison when, to their surprise, 
the captain and one man marched out with flying colors. 
It must have made even the chagrined British laugh. 

Clark, at Kaskaskia, did not learn of what had happened 
at Vincennes until some time in January. He was in a 
perilous situation. He well knew that as soon as the weather 
permitted Hamilton would attack him and he could not resist 
him with the few men he had. (About half of Clark's 
men had returned to their Kentucky homes after things 
had been settled in the Illinois villages.) There was no 
time to lose if Clark would hold the territory he had cap- 
tured. He decided at once what he should do. He sent 
spies to Vincennes to learn the real situation there. Then 
he recruited all the French young men he could to fill up 
his ranks. Clark had become very popular in the meantime 
on account of the way he had dealt with the Indians. The 
French had come to believe him invincible. They were sure 
he must succeed in anything he undertook. So he had little 
trouble in getting quite a number of Frenchmen to enlist 
with him. 

On the twenty-ninth of January, Colonel Francis Vigo, a 

78 



Spanish merchant of St. Louis, who had become a great 
friend to Clark, returning from a trading trip to Vincennes, 
told Clark that all the British except about eighty men had 
returned to Detroit and that Hamilton was busy getting 
ready for a campaign in the spring. 

The time to act had come. The state of Virginia had not 
sent Clark a dollar nor a man. But Colonel Vigo had 
loaned him twenty thousand dollars. With this sum he met 
the necessary expenses of his expedition, and on the seventh 
of February, with his little force of one hundred and forty 
men, most of them French volunteers, started upon his ad- 
venturous march to Vincennes. The distance was not great, 
only about two hundred thirty miles. In warm weather, 
when the fields were full of game and the prairie trails were 
dry, it would have been a light matter for Clark's little army 
to have made this march. But they had no tents. Every 
foot of the prairie trail was water-soaked and muddy. The 
streams were flooded by the early spring freshets. Much 
of the distance they had to wade in the chill, icy water, 
sometimes waist deep. In crossing the Embarrass river 
and the small streams they sometimes were obliged to wade 
for miles with the water up to their shoulders, carrying 
their guns and powder over their heads. Their food gave 
out. Game was scarce and hard to kill. As they approached 
Vincennes they were afraid to shoot lest they announce 
their coming to the British. 

They reached the fort about dark on the twenty-second 
of February, and at once began an attack. The French in- 
habitants were glad to see them and furnished them with 
food and ammunition. General Hamilton, surprised and 
chagrined, refused to surrender. The attack upon the fort, 
with occasional parleys, was continued until the twenty-fifth, 
when the fort was turned over to Clark and his victorious 
followers. The stores captured with the fort were valued at 
about fifty thousand dollars, and in addition to this a boat- 
load of supplies on the way from Detroit was captured, add- 

79 



ing about forty thousand dollars worth more of supplies for 
division among the little band, that was almost shoeless and 
coatless after its fearful march through the swamps of the 
Wabash river bottoms. It was an heroic thing to do and 
bravely did the dauntless leader perform his part. Few 
marches in our history are so well calculated to stir the 
blood of patriotism as the details of this final move in the 
conquest of the Mississippi valley. 

The importance of this campaign of George Rogers Clark, 
including the conquest of the Illinois country, cannot be 
over-estimated. Had the country between the Ohio and the 
Mississippi been in the possession of the British when the 
treaty of 1783 was made it would undoubtedly have re- 
mained theirs, as did Canada. Conquest and possession 
made it as much United States territory as that beyond the 
Alleghany mountains. 

It is greatly to be regretted that the record of such a man 
as George Rogers Clark cannot be glory covered to the end. 
But such was not to be the case. The state of Virginia did 
not realize how great things their heroic soldier of fortune 
had accomplished. His request for further commissions 
was refused; his debts contracted in the name of his state 
were neglected. Hurt to the quick, and heartsore, the hero 
of Kaskaskia and Vincennes, while yet in years but a young 
man, retired to comparative privacy in the vicinity of Louis- 
ville, Kentucky, and there, in 18 18, after severe sufferings 
from rheumatism and paralysis, the after effects of the ex- 
posures he had endured, he passed away and was buried at 
Locust Grove near that city. 



80 



CHAPTER VIII 

FROM THE REVOLUTION TO STATEHOOD (1783 TO 1818) 

George Rogers Clark had taken the fortified posts of the 
British within the IlHnois territory. In all the region from 
the lakes to the Ohio river there was not a fort the British 
could claim. When the commissioners came to form the 
treaty of Paris in 1783, the fact that the Americans had 
conquered and taken possession of this region was sufficient 
to turn the scale in favor of permanent possession. So it 
came about that all the country below the lakes to the Span- 
ish possessions on the south became the undisputed prop- 
erty of the United Colonies. 

It was the Virginia colony that had claimed, under her 
''from sea to sea" charter, all the Illinois country. It was 
the governor of Virginia, Patrick Henry, that had author- 
ized George Rogers Clark to take possession of the country. 
It was in the name of Virginia that Clark had acted, and to 
Virginia he made his report. 

Virginia was not slow in following up the advantage 
gained by her adventurous soldiers. Kaskaskia was taken 
in July, 1778. In October of that year The Assembly of 
Virginia made provisions for a form of temporary govern- 
ment for the Illinois country. On the fifteenth of the fol- 
lowing June, John Todd, one of Clark's colonels, issued a 
proclamation at Kaskaskia, organizing the country into a 
county of Virginia to be known as Illinois county. This 

81 



county included all of the Northwest to which Virginia had 
any semblance of a claim ; Todd remained as governor until 
August i8, 1882, when he was killed at the battle of Blue 
Lick Springs in Kentucky. He was succeeded by Timothy 
Montbrun, a Frenchman. 

As the treaty of peace signed in 1783 set at rest all doubts 
as to the possession of the country, it ceased to be so im- 
portant a subject as it had been. There was enough to 
occupy the attention of the young nation nearer the center 
of population. The French in the valley had about all taken 
the oath of allegiance to the American government and 
seemed happy and contented. 

In 1 781 a party of American settlers crossed the Alle- 
ghanies, descended the Ohio in a flatboat called 'The Ark," 
and with great labor forced it up the Mississippi to a point 
within the present limits of Monroe county. Here they 
landed and established the first permanent American settle- 
ment in the present limits of Illinois. They called their 
settlement New Design. It was only a small colony, but 
it was the advance guard of a different class of settlers from 
that the Mississippi valley had heretofore known. They had 
come to make farms, to cultivate the soil, to establish per- 
manent homes and to possess the land for industrial pur- 
poses. It was a long hard struggle, into the particulars of 
which we cannot go at present. 

On March i, 1784, the state of Virginia ceded all her 
possessions west of the Ohio to the general government. 
The other colonies soon did the same. In this way the new 
government came into possession of a vast tract of land 
which could be divided up and sold to settlers. In May, 
1785, Congress passed an act providing for the survey of all 
this vast region. Here began that elaborate system of sur- 
veys which has been in use ever since, and which has given 
to this country the best, the simplest and the most complete 
system known to the world. 

In 1787 the famous Ordinance for the government of the 

82 




83 



territory northwest of the Ohio was passed by Congress. 
The same year General Arthur St. Clair was made governor 
of all the territory. In 1788 he reached Marietta, the oldest 
American settlement in Ohio. In 1790 he, with the judges 
of the superior court, descended the Ohio river in flatboats 
to the present site of Cincinnati. Here they laid out a county 
large enough to include all the settlements in that neighbor- 
hood and called it Hamilton county. They proceeded down 
the river and up the Mississippi to Kaskaskia, and there 
laid out two counties, to include all the settlements in that 
part of the territory. The boundary line of one began near 
the present town of Tazewell, on the Illinois river, ran 
straight to the site of Fort Massac, then followed the Ohio, 
Mississippi and Illinois to the place of beginning. This 
county was called St. Clair. All to the east of this and 
south of the Illinois was known as Knox county. A court 
was established at Cahokia and the forms of federal gov- 
ernment begun. In 1795 the settlements in the Illinois coun- 
try and the commencement of the courts justified the estab- 
lishing of another county. A line was drawn a little south 
of the settlement of New Design, east and west from the 
Mississippi, to the Knox county line, and all south of that 
line was called Randolph county. These county lines were 
frequently changed. 

We may pause here to take note of an interesting inci- 
dent in the early history of Cohokia that has but recently 
come to light. It is claimed that here in this little French 
village close by the Mississippi, began the public schools 
of Illinois. The old court house, used by the judges under 
St. Clair, stood for years, undisturbed. Recently it was 
bought by an association of citizens of Chicago and removed 
to Wooded Island in Jackson Park, where it stands, a relic 
of the past, to remind us of the primitive simplicity of 
those times. An old document was found bearing date 
May 6, 1794, addressed to the judges of the court. It is 
written in French, which when translated reads as follows : 

84 




MAP or 

ILLINOIS 

SHOWING 

COUNTY BOUNDARIES 

1809. 

( ILLINOIS TY.) 



85 



"To the Gentlemen, the Judges of the Honorable Court 
of Cahokia: 

"The inhabitants of the parish of the Holy Family of 
Cahokia have the honor to express to you at their assembly 
that they have the desire to establish a school in the said 
parish (or town) for the instruction of their children. 

"As they are obliged to do many necessary public works 
in the parish, they cannot at once undertake the construction 
of a building necessary to hold the said school, so these rep- 
resentatives ask you gentlemen that you allow them to hold 
the said school in your audience room of the courthouse until 
they construct a building which will oblige all the inhabitants 
whose children have their instruction in the school and in 
which case, should there arise any defacement of the said 
audience room, they will leave it in the best condition which 
you judge necessary and proper. 

"That is why they supplicate you to accord them this 
request as being necessary for the public good. In this cause 
they submit themselves to your good will and have the honor 
to be, very respectfully, 

"Your very humble and very obedient servants, 

"LOUIS SEBRUN, 
"LOUIS GRAND. 

"Cahokia, 6 May, 1794.' 

This, according to the historians, was the first request for 
a public school in Illinois after the revolutionary war when, 
under one of our first laws, one section in each township was 
set aside for school purposes. 

With the erection in Jackson park of the old courthouse 
in which the first Illinois schools were held, Chicago now 
possesses the only original historic public building west of 
Boston or north of New Orleans. The structure was the 
seat of local government at Cahokia, in what is the oldest 
county in the state. The little building is constructed of 
square black walnut logs, about ten inches square on the ends 

86 




87 



and one story high. The logs are set up on end in the style of 
the construction of the French period. The overhanging 
roof makes the top of the porch, which extends all around it. 
At the end is a chimney and fireplace, with the old hand- 
wrought andirons. 

In May, 1800, the Northwest territory was divided. The 
part containing the present states of Indiana, Michigan, Wis- 
consin and Illinois was set off and called Indiana Territory. 
William Henry Harrison was made governor of this terri- 
tory. The capital of the new territory was fixed at Vin- 
cennes. In 1805 this territory was again divided. The part 
known as Michigan was cut off and named Michigan terri- 
tory. In 1809 another division was made. At this time In- 
diana was set off by itself much as it is at present, while all 
of Illinois, Wisconsin and the peninsular part of Michigan 
was organized into the Illinois territory. Ninian Edwards 
was appointed governor and the seat of government was 
fixed at Kaskaskia. 

In 1812 a territorial legislature was elected by the people. 
Three new counties were established — Madison, Gallatin 
and Johnson. This made five counties in Illinois. 

Then came the war of 1812 with the British. In this war 
Illinois had some slight part. The most tragic event, and 
the only one with which we shall attempt to deal, is the 
massacre at Fort Dearborn, which occurred on the fifteenth 
of August, 181 2. Indian raids and massacres had deter- 
mined the government to erect a line of forts all along the 
western frontier to protect the settlers. Detroit was to the 
north of this line. In 1795 General Wayne defeated the 
Indians at the Falls of the Maumee river, and a fort called 
Fort Wayne was established at this point. 

Friction had existed between the English and the Ameri- 
cans from the close of the Revolution. Bad faith was 
charged on both sides. The English in Canada had en- 
couraged the organization of the Indians against the Ameri- 
cans to the south, and it is said had paid them for scalps 

88 



taken by their raiding parties. All along the border line 
and reaching down to the Ohio river there were frequent 
massacres of white settlers. 

It is impossible for us to realize the horror of one of these 
Indian surprises and the devastation left behind one of their 
raids. It is one of the most astounding paradoxes of human 
nature that in spite of massacres and outrages, in field and 
in home, the population increased. 

As the impending struggle between the states and the 
English government drew near the Indians became more 
aggressive and their confederacies became stronger and 
more compact. 

When the declaration of war was made, in June, 1812, 
the news was at once spread by fleet-footed messengers 
among all the western tribes, and they believed the time had 
come when, with British bayonets and Indian scalping 
knives, the whites were to be driven from the hunting 
grounds of their fathers. 

General Hull was sent to Fort Detroit to hold the place 
against the British. The Illinois country was included in 
his command. At Chicago, Fort Dearborn had been built 
in 1803 and was held by a small garrison under Captain 
Heald. Finding that the forest paths were beset and guarded 
by bands of Indians, General Hull sent word to Captain 
Heald that if he could not hold the fort until aid could 
reach him he should withdraw his garrison and proceed at 
once to Fort Wayne. The message reached Fort Dearborn 
on the ninth of August. Large forces of Indians were al- 
ready gathering about the place and Captain Heald decided 
to abandon the place. His subordinate officers protested, 
but he insisted and fixed upon the fifteenth as the time for 
their departure. 

On the evening of the twelfth Captain Heald held a con- 
ference with the Indians outside the fort. He agreed to 
leave the fort with all his men and to turn over to them all 
the supplies, including the ammunition, provided they should 

89 



give him a safe escort to Fort Wayne. The garrison ob- 
jected to giving the powder and ball to the Indians who 
might use them in an attack. Finally the powder was thrown 
into a well and the liquor was emptied into the river. The 
Indians learned of this fact and, believing themselves de- 
ceived and cheated, considered that they were freed from 
all obligations to furnish a safe escort. 

On the night of the fourteenth John Kinzie brought his 
family into the fort for protection, and the few other set- 
tlers in the neighborhood did the same. Wagons were 
loaded with the things needed for the trip, and twenty-five 
rounds of ammunition were dealt out to each man. 

At nine o'clock on the morning of the fifteenth of August 
the little cavalcade filed out from the doomed fortress and 
began its march along the sandy shore of the river. The 
Chicago river at that time had its mouth much farther south 
than at the present. It emptied into the lake near the pres- 
ent end of Madison street. The whole company consisted 
of sixty-six soldiers of the garrison. Captain Wells, of Fort 
Wayne, with thirty friendly Miami Indians, and about thirty 
settlers, women and children. 

When the company reached the place which is now the 
foot of Eighteenth street they were attacked by an over- 
whelming force of Indians that had been slowly gathering 
about them. The friendly Miamis fled at the first attack. 
The soldiers of the garrison and the settlers fought bravely, 
but in twenty minutes the struggle was over. About fifteen 
Indians were killed. Of the white dead there were twenty- 
six soldiers, twelve settlers, two women and twelve children 
left on the field. The others, consisting of Captain and Mrs. 
Heald, Mrs. Helm, twenty-five soldiers, and eleven women 
and children were prisoners. More than half of them were 
wounded. Most of the wounded were killed that night by 
the merciless savages. 

The story of the survivors of this massacre is thrilling. 
They were scattered from the banks of the Wabash to 

90 



Mackinac. Most of them were eventually ransomed and 
returned to the white settlements. 

At the foot of Eighteenth street, near the spot where this 
awful massacre occurred, stands today a group of bronze 
figures upon a massive granite pedestal. It represents the 
saving of Mrs. Helm by Black Partridge, a friendly Indian 
chief, during the heat of the struggle. It stands there to 
remind us of the agonies, worse than death, through which 
our frontier forefathers passed as they laid deep and strong 
the foundations of civilization in this western country. 

From this time to the close of the war in 1814, parties of 
soldiers were going to and fro in the state, seeking out hos- 
tile Indians, burning their villages and destroying their 
crops, but there was nothing approaching a battle and little 
that deserved the name of warfare. 

As stated above, in 18 12 the state entered upon its second 
stage of territorial government. A legislature, consisting of 
five members of the legislative council and seven members 
of the house, was elected by the inhabitants of the five 
counties. This general assembly held its first session at 
Kaskaskia in November and December of 1812. It reen- 
acted many of the old territorial laws and elected Shadrach 
Bond to be the territorial delegate to Congress. During his 
term as delegate Bond secured the passage by Congress of 
the first preemption law. This law provided that when a 
settler had made improvements upon a piece of land be- 
longing to the government he could not be displaced by an- 
other purchaser until he had been given a chance to buy the 
land from the government. 

Population increased very rapidly from 1812 to 1818. 
Many soldiers from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, who 
came into the state to protect the settlers during the war, 
were so well pleased with the country that they came back 
with their families and became permanent residents. Be- 
fore 1818 ten new counties were formed, making fifteen in 

91 




ILLINOIS 

SHOWING 

COUNTY BOUNDARIES 

1818. 

(lULINOISTV.) 



92 



all, and the total population had increased to about forty 
thousand. 

Early in 1818 a petition was presented to Congress 
through Nathaniel Pope, then the Illinois delegate, asking 
an act to enable the territory of Illinois to form a state gov- 
ernment. Such an- act was passed April 18, fixing the 
boundaries of the state and the provisions under which it 
might be admitted to the Union. After much tribulation and 
no little scheming the conditions were complied with to the 
satisfaction of Congress, and the bill which made Illinois a 
state received the signature of President Monroe on the 
fourth of December, iSiB. 



93 



CHAPTER IX 

ACQUIRING TITLE TO THE SOIL 

It will be useful for us to review briefly the various claims 
to the soil of our state and the steps by which it was finally 
vested in the people of Illinois. 

Omitting all consideration of the original occupants, the 
Indians, we learn that in 1497 one, John Cabot, and his son 
Sebastian made certain "voyages of discovery" under the 
patronage of the English king, Henry VII. In one of these 
voyages it is claimed that the shore of the continent was 
coasted from Labrador to the Carolinas, and upon this claim 
was based the right of England to occupy and dispose of 
the lands within these latitudes and extending as far west 
as the western sea — wheresoever that might be. Other na- 
tions did not seem to seriously question this claim, and upon 
it rests the original title of England to American soil. 

"In the year of our Lord 1497 John Cabot, a Venetian, 
and his sonne Sebastian, — discovered that land which no 
man before that time had attempted, on the 24th of June 
(July) about five of the clock, early in the morning." — 
Voyages of the English Nation to America, Vol. i, p. 24 — 
Hakluyt. 

The English king in time gave charters to various com- 
panies for the settlement of these lands. In 1606, a charter, 
known as the Virginia charter, was given, with very indefi- 
nite boundary lines between the thirty-fourth and thirty- 

94 



fifth degrees north latitude. In 1609 this charter was modi- 
fied, locating the lands of Virginia between lines two hun- 
dred miles north and two hundred miles south of Old Point 
Comfort. If lines be drawn east and west as here indicated, 
they will follow very closely the thirty-fourth and fortieth 
parallels. By this arrangement, all the central and southern 
parts of the present Illinois fell within the Virginia limits. 
Following the original north by northwest line named in 
the 1606 charter, which Virginia continued to claim, all 
of the Illinois country fell within the Virginia grant. 

In 1 62 1 a charter was given the Massachusetts colony 
which conveyed territory ''from sea to sea" between the 
fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of latitude. In 1662 a 
charter was given to Connecticut conveying territory as 
wide as the present state and reaching from "sea to sea." 

These various charters were frequently modified, and, as 
can be easily seen, the grants of land overlapped each other. 
The truth is, the king and his councillors who gave the 
charters, and the grantees who were bargaining for them, 
were all alike ignorant of the geography of the country 
which they were dividing up. It was all a terra incognita 
to them, and the most vague and indefinite notions prevailed 
as to the location and extent of the New World. 

As the result of these various charters, a strip of country 
across the extreme northern part of the present state of 
Illinois was claimed as belonging by the charter of 1621 to 
Massachusetts. Just to the south of this was a strip claimed 
by Connecticut under the charter of 1662, while the rest of 
the state was conceded to belong to Virginia. 

Long after these charters were granted, the French came 
up the valley of the St. Lawrence, across the Great Lakes 
and down the Mississippi valley, making theirs by posses- 
sion the lands which the colonists held only by charter. 
This invasion and possession lasted from 1673, when Mar- 
quette and Joliet, as the representatives of the French king, 

95 



crossed this country, until 1763, when, as the result of 
unsuccessful war, France ceded all of her possessions on 
the American continent to Great Britain. 

England does not seem in any way to have recognized the 
old charter rights of the colonies to these lands west of the 
Alleghanies after this war, but proceeded to treat them as 
she did the lands to the north of the Lakes. 

The revolution came, and in the midst of the strife and 
turmoil George Rogers Clark appeared and, in the name of 
Virginia, captured the Illinois country from the British in that 
famous Kaskaskia and Vincennes campaign of 1778-9. At 
once the title of Virginia to the Illinois country was revived, 
and it was at once organized into a county of Virginia, and 
this was its legal status from 1778 to 1787. 

In March, 1784, Virginia made a conditional cession of 
all her lands west and northwest of the Ohio to the United 
States government. In April, 1785, Massachusetts joined 
her in this cession. In September, 1786, Connecticut gave 
up her claims. Thus the territory embraced in the present 
state of Illinois passed into the hands of the United States. 
Then followed the great ordinance of 1787 for the govern- 
ment of this territory northwest of the Ohio river. Under 
this ordinance a government was organized and carried on 
from 1790 to 1809. During this latter period the name Illi- 
nois was not used to designate the territory. (It was known 
as Indiana territory.) But in 1809 the boundaries were 
changed, a territorial government was established over the 
Illinois country, and the name Illinois was restored. In 
1812 the first territorial legislature was elected, consisting 
of twelve members in all. In April, 18 18, the enabling act 
was passed, and in December of the same year Illinois be- 
came a full-fledged state, one of the sovereign members of 
the Union. 

A brief outline of these various changes may help us to 
associate them more readily. 

96 



The Various Claimants to the Illinois Country. 

1. The English, — ^by Cabot's discovery, 1497. 

2. The Colonies by original charters — 

Virginia, 1609. 
Massachusetts, 1621. 
Connecticut, 1662. 

3. The French, by exploration and occupation, 1673-1763. 

4. The English, by treaty of Paris, 1763. 

5. Virginia, by conquest of George Rogers Clark, 1778-9. 

(Ceded to the United States by treaty of 1783.) 

6. The United States, by cession — 

Virginia, 1784. 

Massachusetts, 1785. 

Connecticut, 1786. 

(Governed under the Ordinance, 1787- 1 809.) 

7. Illinois Territory, 1809- 18 18. 

(Name Illinois suppressed from 1787 to 1809.) 

8. State of Illinois from December 4, 1818. 



97 



CHAPTER X 

THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS 

Illinois is now being governed under the provisions of its 
third constitution. The first dated from the admission as a 
state in 1818, the second from 1848, and the third from 
1870. There is a general feeling that a fourth constitution 
is greatly needed owing to the rapid development and mar- 
velous changes of the past forty years, but the political 
managers upon one side and the people upon the other, 
through fear of objectionable features that might find place 
in a new constitution, have prevented its enactment. 

Under the ordinance of 1787 it was provided that the 
Northwest Territory should be divided up into not less 
than three states, and that to secure admission by any one 
of these states a population of not less than sixty thousand 
should be shown. When the petition from Illinois was 
received by Congress, an amendment was made accepting 
forty thousand as the requisite number. 

Our territorial delegate in Congress, Mr. Nathaniel Pope, 
succeeded also in having the northern boundary moved from 
a line running directly west from the most southern point 
of Lake Michigan to the parallel forty-two degrees and 
thirty minutes north latitude, thus giving the state sixty 
miles of lake shore and securing Chicago harbor for Illinois 
instead of for Wisconsin. We are under a great debt of 



gratitude to Mr. Pope for his wise and statesman-like 
management in bringing the new state into the Union. 

Mr. Pope secured also another amendment to the Ordi- 
nance. It was provided that five per cent of the money 
received from the sale of public lands in the states should be 
devoted to public works, such as building roads and digging 
canals. This was amended so that three-fifths of this money 
could be set aside for public school purposes, one-sixth of 
which should be given over for the benefit of a college or 
university. This was the foundation for our state fund for 
the public schools and for our great and growing university 
at Champaign. 

The convention for framing the first constitution met 
at Kaskaskia, August 3, 1818, and completed its work 
on the twenty-sixth of the same month. As stated else- 
where, there were then fifteen counties in the state. St. 
Clair, Madison and Gallatin sent three delegate's each to this 
convention, the others two each, making a total of thirty- 
three delegates. One delegate died during the meeting, 
leaving but thirty-two in actual attendance. 

This constitution of 18 18 was never submitted to the 
people for approval or rejection. It was comparatively a 
brief document, occupying but nine pages in the statute 
book, as against twenty-three pages of the present constitu- 
tion. It shows very litle confidence in the vox populi. As 
little as possible was left to popular vote for decision. The 
provisions were copied chiefly from the constitutions of 
Kentucky, New York, Ohio and Indiana. The only officers 
the people were permitted to elect were the governor, lieu- 
tenant governor, sheriff and coroner. All other officers were 
appointed by or with the advice of the legislature. Com- 
paring this with the provisions of the present constitution, 
we see that great advance has been made in trusting the 
people to manage their own affairs. Local self-government 
has undergone a rapid and radical change in the last three- 
quarters of a century. L OF C 

99 



One thing this constitution did which was an advance 
upon all previous organic enactments — it abolished imprison- 
ment for debt. Article VIII, section 15, reads: "No 
person shall be imprisoned for debt unless upon refusal to 
deliver up his estate for the benefit of his creditors." If 
such a provision had existed in the constitution of Penn- 
sylvania, Robert Morris, .the financial patriot of the Revo- 
lution, had not been forced to spend four years of his old 
age in prison. 

This constitution gave great latitude to the legislature 
in pledging the credit of the state ; this was the most serious 
weakness of the document. It led to financial embarrass- 
ment, bringing the state to the verge of bankruptcy. The 
present constitution has erected effectual safeguards against 
this tendency to contract debts. 

Next after the latitude allowed the legislature to abuse 
the credit of the state, the provision that gave rise to the 
most serious complications was that of Article VI, in refer- 
ence to slavery. It is ambiguous and capable of being so 
construed as to permit slavery as effectually as it existed in 
Kentucky. This brought on the bitter contest of 1823-4, 
in which the anti-slavery party won and slavery came to an 
end in the state so far as any countenance from the law 
was concerned. 

When the slavery question was settled in 1824 the attacks 
upon the constitution ceased and for eighteen years little 
was said about a new constitution. In 1840-41 the legis- 
lature provided for the calling of a constitutional convention, 
but it failed of approval by the people, and nothing was 
done. In 1844-45 the matter was again taken up, and this 
time secured approval. The convention, consisting of as 
many delegates as there were members entitled to the 
general assembly, met at Springfield, June 7, 1847, and 
completed its work by the thirty-first of August; this con- 
stitution was ratified by the people March 6, 1848, and went 
into effect on the first day of April of that year. 

100 



The marked change observed in comparing the constitu- 
tions of 1818 and 1848 is along the Hne of popular govern- 
ment, — the placing of greater power in the hands of the 
people. The powers of the legislature were curtailed both 
in the expending of moneys and in the appointment of 
officers. This constitution, in length, stands about midway 
between that of 18 18 and 1870, occupying about fourteen 
pages on the statute book. 

It was only a few years until the people and the press 
began to discover weaknesses and limitations in the new 
constitution that were detrimental to the best interests and 
the growth of the state. A demand went up for a new 
constituion, and in 1862 a convention was called; but it was 
in the storm and stress of the civil war, and it is not to be 
wondered at that the people refused to approve a document 
wrought out at such a time. However, the need of a better 
constitution was evident to all, and in 1869, under more 
favorable conditions, a second convention was assembled at 
Springfield. This resulted in the present constitution, which 
was approved by the people July 2, 1870, and went into effect 
on the eighth of August of the same year. 

As it stands today, this is perhaps one of the best state 
constitutions in the Union. The state, however, in its rapid 
development has outgrown many of the provisions, and 
frequent patching by way of amendment has been resorted 
to that it may continue to serve its original purpose. 

The space limitations of this booklet precludes the possi- 
bility of printing in this place a copy of the constitution of 
the state, but it should be in the hands of each teacher and 
pupil who reads this chapter, and the main provisions 
should be outlined and discussed at some length. Familiarity 
with the fundamental provisions of government, either state 
or national, is well worth the time and effort necessary to 
secure it. 



lOI 



CHAPTER XI 

CONSTITUTIONAL BOUNDARY AND DIVISIONS 

On the eighteenth of April, 1818, Congress passed an 
"enabHng act" giving the people of Illinois permission to 
form a constitution and prepare for admission to the Union 
as a state. This enabling act defined the boundaries which 
the proposed state must accept. This boundary line is re- 
peated in the constitution of the state. It read as follows : 
''Beginning at the mouth of the Wabash river, thence up 
the same and with the line of Indiana to the northwest 
corner of said state ; thence east with the line of said state 
to the middle of Lake Michigan, thence north along the 
middle of said lake to north latitude forty-two degrees and 
thirty minutes, thence west to the middle of the Mississippi 
river, and thence down along the middle of said river to 
its confluence with the Ohio, and thence up the latter river 
along its northwestern shore to the place of beginning." 

This constitutes the official boundary of the state, found 
not on the maps nor in the geographies, but in the consti- 
tution of the state and the enactments of Congress. 

This territory, covering about fifty-six thousand four 
hundred square miles, has been divided up into counties. 
There have been many changes in county lines since General 
St. Clair came with his staff down the Ohio river on a flat- 
boat and organized the first county of the state. The 
records show twenty-seven readjustments in all, St. Clair, 

102 




MAP or 
ILLINOIS 

SHOWING 
PRESENt 

COUNTY BOUNDARIES 

ANO 

DATE OF ORGANIZATION 

OF EACH COUNTY 

1905. 



103 



in 1790, being the first, and Ford county, in 1859, being the 
last. There will probably be few changes in county lines 
in the future. There are now one hunr'red and two counties 
in the state. 

The constitution of the United States says that the repre- 
sentatives in Congress shall be apportioned among the states 
in the ratio of their population. This made necessary a 
general census. The constitution also provides for the time 
of taking this census. It is taken every ten years. The 
representation from any state may be changed every ten 
years, either to fewer or more members. Illinois has steadily 
increased her numbers, until now she has twenty-five; con- 
sequently the state is divided into twenty-five congressional 
districts, each of which elects a representative to Congress 
every two years. (Stat, p. 815.) 

The state has a legislature copied after that of the national 
Congress, consisting of a senate and a house of representa- 
tives. The state constitution provides for the number of 
members in each house. (Art. IV, Sec. 6.) There are 
one-half as many senators as there are counties, and three 
times as many representatives as there are senators. This 
gives to the state legislature fifty-one senators and one hun- 
dred and fifty-three representatives. The districts from 
which these members of the state legislature are elected are 
also subject to change as the population changes. (Stat., 
p. 817.) The party in power at the time of redistricting 
always tries to so divide the state that as many as possible 
of the districts may be represented by its members. 

At the present time, Cook and Lake counties have ten of 
the congressmen out of a possible twenty-five, and Cook 
has nineteen of the state senators out of a possible fifty-one, 
with fifty-seven members of the assembly out of a total of 
one hundred and fifty-three. 

In order to carry on the judicial work of the state it is 
necessary to have judic'al districts and circuits. The judicial 
department is modeled after that of the national judicial 

104 



' 




HILILIIHdDIIS 

CONMCSSKMAL IPPORTlOmiCIlT ^ 



105 



system. The state constitution (Art. VI) provides that "the 
judicial powers, except as in this article is otherwise pro- 
vided, shall be vested in one supreme court, circuit courts, 
county courts, justices of the peace, police magistrates, and 
such courts as may be created by law in and for cities and 
incorporated towns." Provision is then made for dividing 
the state into seven judicial districts, each of which may 
elect one judge of the supreme court to serve nine years. 
The districts can be changed by the state legislature, but 
only at the session next preceding the election of judges. 
Cook county is in the seventh district. 

There are circuit court divisions based upon population. 
The constitution forbids more than one for one hundred 
thousand of the population. There are at present seventeen 
such circuits not counting Cook county. In judicial matters 
Cook county has had special provision made because of the 
great population massed in the city of Chicago. The county 
constitutes one judicial circuit, and there are also superior 
and criminal courts established by the constitution, and the 
legislature is forbidden to include this county in the re- 
districting of the state into circuits. The constitution also 
provides for appellate court districts, the judges of which 
courts shall be the same as the judges of the circuit courts, 
and no extra compensation is allowed for this service. There 
are four such districts in the state, of which Cook county 
constitutes the first. 

In addition to the supreme, circuit and appellate courts as 
given, each county elects its own county judge, and if there 
are over fifty thousand inhabitants the legislature may pro- 
vide for the election of a probate judge also. 

As a matter of convenient reference, the following table 
has been arranged, giving the counties of the state in alpha- 
betical order and indicating the various divisions of the state 
to which each belongs : 



1 06 



Illinois Electoral Districts. 





County seat. 


o 
m 


t 
o 

a 

5, 


II 


Judicial 
Dis. 


County. 


.2 
1 

Qi 


6 

a 

a 






36 
50 
47 
8 
30 
37 
36 
12 
30 
24 
40 
34 
42 
42 
34 
* 

48 
40 
35 
28 
34 
41 
22 
48 
42 
40 
26 
50 
43 
48 
38 
20 
51 
32 
48 
33 
37 
20 
44 
46 
46 
38 
12 
51 
14 
20 
14 
43 
8 
39 
48 
35 
16 
28 


15 
25 
22 
12 
20 
16 
20 
13 
20 
19 
21 
18 
24 
23 
19 
* 

23 
18 
12 
19 
19 
11 
18 
24 
23 
23 
17 
25 
15 
24 
20 
12 
24 
14 
24 
14 
15 
18 
25 
23 
23 
20 
13 
24 
11 
18 
12 
15 
10 
12 
23 
13 
17 
17 


8 
1 
3 

17 
8 

13 
8 

15 
8 
6 
4 
5 
4 
4 
5 
* 

2 

5 

16 

6 

6 

16 

5 

2 

4 

4 

11 

2 

9 

2 

7 

13 

2 

9 

2 

9 

14 

12 

1 

4 

2 

7 

15 

1 

16 

12 

16 

9 

17 

13 

2 

15 

11 

11 


3 
4 
4 
2 
3 
2 
3 
2 
3 
3 
3 
3 
4 
4 
3 
* 
4 
3 
2 
3 
3 
2 
3 
4 
4 
4 
3 
4 
3 
4 
3 
2 
4 
3 
4 
2 
2 
2 
4 
4 
4 
3 
2 
4 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 
4 
2 
2 
3 


4 


Alexander 


Cairo 


1 




Greenville 

Belvidere 

Mount Sterling... 

Princeton 

Hardin 


?, 


Boone ,..•., 


6 




4 


Tlnrpan . ..... 


5 


Calhoun 


?, 


Carroll 


Mount Carroll 

Virginia 


6 


Cass 


4 


Champaign 

Christian 


3 


Taylorville 

Marshall 

Louisville 

Carlyle 


?. 


Clark 


?, 


Clay 


?, 


Clinton 


1 


Coles 


Charleston 

Chicago 

Robinson 

Toledo 


3 


Cook 


* 


Crawford 


?. 


CnnihprlniKl 


9, 


DeKalb 


Sycamore 

Clinton 


6 


DeWitt 


S 


Tlnnp'IflS! 


Tuscola 


3 


DuPage 


Wheaton 

Paris 


7 


Edgar 


3 




Albion 


1 


Effingham 


Effingham . 

Vandalia 

Paxton 


?. 


Fayette 


2 


Ford 


3 


Franklin 


Benton 


1 


Fulton 


Lewistown 

Shawneetown 

Carrollton 

Morris 


4 


Gallatin 


1 


Greene 


2 




5 


Hamilton 


McLeansboro 

Carthage 

Elizabethtown . . . 

Oquawka 

Cambridge 

Watseka 

Murphysboro .... 
Newton 


1 


Hancock 


4 


Hardin 


1 


Henderson 


4 


Henry 


5 


Iroquois 


3 


Jackson 


1 


Jasper 


9. 


Jefiferson 


Mount Vernon. . . . 

Jerseyville 

Galena 


1 


Jersey 


?. 


Jo Daviess 


6 




Vienna 


1 


Kane 


Geneva 


(\ 


Kankakee 


Kankakee 

Yorkville 

Galesburg 

Waukegan 

Ottawa 


7 


Kendall 


6 


Knox 


5 


Lake 


7 


LaSalle 


5 


Lawrence 


Lawrenceville 

Dixon 


?, 


Lee 


6 


Livingston 

Logan 


Pontiac 


3 


Lincoln 


3 



* Senatorial, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 
29, 31. Congressional, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Judicial circuit, not 
numbered. Appellate, 1. Supreme, 7. 

107 



COUNTT. 



County seat. 



.X 3 



Judicial 
Dis. 



Macon .... 
Macoupin . 
Madison . . 
Marion . . . 
Marshall . . 
Mason .... 
Massac . . . 
McDonough 
McHenry . . 
McLean . . . 
Menard . . . 
Mercer .... 
Monroe . . . 
Montgomery 
Morgan . . . 
Moultrie . . 

Ogle 

Peoria .... 

Perry 

Piatt 

Pike 

Pope 

Pulaslti . . . 
Putnam . . . 
Randolph . . 
Richland . . 
Rock Island 

Saline 

Sangamon . 
Schuyler , . 

Scott 

Shelby 

Stark 

St. Clair... 
Stephenson 
Tazewell . . 

Union 

Vermilion . 
Wabash . . . 
Warren . . . 
Washington 
Wayne .... 

White 

Whiteside . 

Will 

Williamson 
Winnebago 
Woodford . 



Decatur 

Carlinville . . 
Edwardsville 

Salem 

Lacon 

Havana .... 
Metropolis . . 

Macomb 

Woodstock . . 
Bloomington . 
Petersburg . . 

Aledo 

Waterloo .... 
Hillsboro . . . 
Jacksonville . 

Sullivan 

Oregon 

Peoria 

Pinckneyville 
Monticello . . 

Pittsfleld 

Golconda .... 
Mound City.. 
Hennepin . . . 

Chester 

Olney 

Rock Island. . 
Harrisburg . . 
Springfleld . . 
Rushville . . . 
Winchester .. 
Shelbyville . . 

Toulon 

Belleville 

Freeport 

Pekin 

Jonesboro . . . 
Danville .... 
Mount Carmel 
Monmouth . . 
Nashville . . . 

Fairfield 

Carmi 

Morrison .... 

Joliet 

Marion 

Rockford 

Eureka 



28 


19 


6 


3 


38 


21 


7 


3 


47 


22 


3 


4 


42 


23 


4 


4 


16 


16 


10 


2 


30 


20 


8 


3 


51 


24 


1 


4 


32 


14 


9 


3 


8 


11 


17 


2 


26 


17 


11 


3 


30 


20 


4 


3 


33 


14 


14 


2 


44 


22 


3 


4 


38 


21 


4 


3 


45 


20 


7 


3 


24 


19 


6 


3 


10 


13 


15 


2 


18 


16 


10 


2 


44 


25 


3 


4 


24 


19 


6 


3 


36 


20 


8 


3 


51 


24 


1 


4 


50 


25 


1 


4 


16 


16 


10 


2 


44 


25 


3 


4 


46 


23 


2 


4 


33 


14 


14 


2 


51 


24 


1 


4 


45 


21 


7 


3 


30 


15 


8 


3 


36 


20 


7 


3 


40 


19 


4 


3 


37 


16 


10 


2 


49 


22 


3 


4 


12 


13 


15 


2 


30 


16 


10 


3 


50 


25 


1 


4 


22 


18 


5 


3 


48 


23 


2 


4 


22 


14 


9 


2 


44 


22 


3 


4 


46 


24 


2 


4 


48 


24 


2 


4 


35 


13 


14 


2 


41 


11 


12 


2 


50 


25 


1 


4 


10 


12 


17 


2 


16 


17 


11 


2 



io8 



CHAPTER XII 

THE CAPITALS OF ILLINOIS 

In the story of the occupation and settlement of IlHnois 
by the French we found that the interests of the colonists 
gathered about a few settlements on the peninsula reaching 
from the mouth of the Kaskaskia river northward to a 
point nearly opposite the present city of St. Louis. Here, 
in Kaskaskia, St. Phillipe, Chartres, Cahokia, and Prairie 
du Rocher, the people gathered in greatest numbers; here 
their schools and churches were established, and here they 
were wont to turn for their laws and judicial proceedings. 
When the country passed into the hands of the English, 
these centers of population, of which Kaskaskia was the 
chief, were still recognized as the official centers of govern- 
ment. After 1787, when the American settlers began 
making homes in the great Northwest, they were not so 
particular about clinging to the rivers and water-courses as 
the French had been ; so settlements sprang up in all parts 
of the waste of prairies and wilderness of woods. 

In 1772, when Fort Chartres was destroyed by the Missis- 
sippi floods, the English moved their seat of government 
for the Illinois country to Kaskaskia. After George Rogers 
Clark had taken possession of the country in the name of 
Virginia, Colonel John Todd set up a temporary govern- 
ment at Kaskaskia. This settlement continued to be the 
chief town of the Illinois country until 1800, when, under 

109 



Governor William Henry Harrison, Illinois became a part 
of the Indiana territory, and the seat of government was 
fixed at Vincennes. But in 1809, when Illinois territory 
was organized, Kaskaskia again became the seat of govern- 
ment. It was here in 181 2 that the first territorial legis- 
lature of Illinois met, and it was here also that the conven- 
tion of 1818 met to frame the constitution for the new 
state. This constitution provided that the seat of govern- 
ment should be at Kaskaskia until the general assembly 
should otherwise provide. 

There was no capitol building at Kaskaskia. Temporary 
provision had to be made for the accommodation of the 
assemblies called to meet there. The first legislature which 
convened at Kaskaskia on November 25, 18 12, met in a 
rough building of uncut limestone, with steep roof and 
unpainted boards, located in the center of a square. It is 
claimed by some that this building was the one occupied 
by the Commandant Rocheblave when George Rogers Clark 
captured the place in 1778. The first floor, a low, gloomy 
room, was fitted up for the House, and a small chamber 
above was arranged for the Senate. All the twelve mem- 
bers, it is said, boarded at one house and lodged in one 
room. 

The first session of the legislature under the constitution 
of 1818 appointed a committee of five members to locate a 
place for a new capital, with the provision that the new 
location should remain the capital for at least twenty years. 
The present site of Vandalia was selected, and in 1820 the 
records, documents and archives of the state government 
were removed to that place in a small wagon. 

The first state house consisted of a small two-story 
wooden structure, the lower floor of which was for the 
accommodation of the house, while the upper floor, divided 
into two rooms, was for the senate and state officers. In 
December, 1823, this building was totally destroyed by fire, 
not a scrap of furniture being saved from the flames. At 

no 



once a subscription was circulated to obtain funds for 
erecting a new building, and within three days sufficient 
funds were obtained to start another building. This build- 
ing, costing about fifteen thousand dollars, stood until 1836, 
when it was torn down to make place for a more com- 
modious brick structure, which still stands, doing service 
as Fayette County's courthouse. 

Before the twenty-year period had expired, a number of 
cities were urging their claim to be made the capital of the 
state. Alton, Vandalia, Springfield, Peoria and many others 
took active part in securing petitions and votes in favor of 
their claims. The legislature was slow to act, but finally 
in the session of 1837, by the persistent and diplomatic 
pressure of some eight or nine men, of whom Abraham 
Lincoln was one, Springfield was chosen. Money was 
appropriated by the legislature for a new building, and a 
similar amount, with grounds, was donated by the city. 

The first legislature to assemble in Springfield was that 
of the second session of the eleventh general assembly. It 
met on the ninth of December, 1839. The building was not 
completed, and the different departments of the legislature 
were accommodated in the various churches of the city. The 
building when completed cost about $250,000^ and for years 
was the wonder of the country round about. But twenty 
years of growth demanded a greater building. The state 
had outgrown its capitol. The legislature of 1865 raised the 
question of a new building, and at once an agitation sprang 
up for a change of location. Peoria was the only dangerous 
rival to the capital city. After a heated campaign, the 
matter was finally settled by a vote of one hundred to 
seventy- four in the legislature, June 7, 1871. This probably 
settled the question of location for all time to come. The 
new building is a magnificent structure costing about four 
million dollars, and was completed in 1887. 



Ill 



CHAPTER XIII 

EVOLUTION OF THE ILLINOIS SCHOOL LAW 

In the ordinance of 1787, Article III, it is declared that 
"Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good 
government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the 
means of education shall forever be encouraged." 

In the enabling act, passed by Congress, April 18, 1818, 
we find (Sec. 6, Prop, i): "The section numbered 16 
in every township * * * shall be granted to the state for 
the use of the inhabitants of such township for the use of 
schools." Proposition 3 of the same section provides that 
three per cent of the proceeds of all public lands sold in the 
state "shall be appropriated by the legislature of the state 
for the encouragement of learning, of which one-sixth part 
shall be exclusively bestowed upon a college or university." 

Here we have the beginnings of our public school system. 
It was born with the state. The same act that created the 
state provided the means and made it obligatory upon the 
legislature to organize a system of education. These provi- 
sions and the obligations attaching thereto were accepted 
by the convention at Kaskaskia, August 16, 18 18. 

It seems strange that the constitution drawn up by the 
same Kaskaskia convention should contain no reference 
whatever to the subject of schools or of school education. 

112 



The constitution of 1848 contained no more than a brief 
passing reference or two on the subject of school taxation. 
But the constitution of 1870 contains ample recognition of 
the subject. Article VIII opens with this section: 'The 
general assembly shall provide a thorough and efficient 
system of free schools whereby all children of this state 
may receive a good common school education." Then follow 
the provisions concerning the administration of this consti- 
tutional obligation. 

While the early state constitutions were strangely silent 
upon the subject, the legislatures were not altogether in- 
active. The first effort to frame a school law was made in 
1825. Doubtless the members of the legislature thought 
they were inaugurating and setting in operation a most 
liberal and comprehensive plan for the education of the 
youth of the state. Unfortunately, the most comprehensive 
part of the plan was placed in the preamble. Nearly all of 
the provisions of the law had to do solely with the adminis- 
tration of the funds provided by the general government 
through its land grants. The law did not prescribe the 
studies that were to be taught, nor did it indicate the 
manner of licensing the teachers nor the qualifications they 
should possess. The most limited powers for local taxation 
were provided, and the taxes were to be ''levied either in 
cash or good merchantable produce at cash prices." Even 
this provision was made valueless by the next legislature, 
which enacted that no person might be "taxed for the 
support of any free school unless his or her free-will had 
first been obtained in writing." 

There was some patching of the provisions by various 
legislatures until 1845, when the whole school legislation 
was revised and previous acts not reincorporated were 
repealed. In this revision it was specifically stated that the 
schools must be taught in the English language and from 
text-books printed in English. It also specified the subjects, 

"3 



"orthography, reading in English, penmanship, arithmetic, 
EngHsh grammar, modern geography, and the history of the 
United States." 

More patching was done by the succeeding legislatures 
until 1849, after the new constitution had gone into effect, 
when a new revision of the school law was made. Then 
again in 1857 another revision was made, which is the 
fullest in detail of any attempt up to that time. In 1865 a 
revision was made again, in an attempt to meet the exigen- 
cies of the growing school system of the state. 

After the adoption of the last constitution in 1870, a new 
and more complete school law was enacted. This law was 
repeatedly amended until 1889, when it was thoroughly 
revised and recast to the form in which we now have it. 
Of course many amendments have been made since 1889, 
and, without doubt, the interests of the schools of the state 
would be subserved by a general revision, simplification and 
codification of the school laws now in force. To this task 
let us hope the educational commission provided by the 
legislature of 1907 will set itself with broad-minded and 
earnest endeavor. 

The above is a brief outline of the manner in which our 
school law has grown at the hands of the legislators. It 
does not hint at the great struggles, the anxious days and 
nights, the pleadings and petitionings, the speeches and let- 
ters, the heart burnings and sacrifices of the friends of the 
public school system in their effort to wring from the politi- 
cal office-holders of the state, step by step, a worthy and 
creditable system of public schools. The heroic struggle 
waged by such men as John M. Peck, J. B. Turner, Ninian 
W. Edwards, W. F. Arney, Charles E. Hovey, James H. 
Blodgett, Samuel Willard, Newton Bateman, W. M. Powell 
and Richard Edwards, B. G. Roots, and a host of others 
too numerous to mention, in their efforts to arouse the 
conscience of the state and to secure enactments by the 

114 



legislatures, is worthy a place beside the story of our other 
heroes who made possible our greatness and maintained our 
honor upon other fields. 

A copy of the latest school law should be at hand for 
reference by all who read this section. An outline of the 
general provisions should be made so that discussions of the 
subject may be intelligible. 



115 



CHAPTER XIV 

SLAVERY IN ILLINOIS 

We remember (Chapt. V) that in 1720 one Francois 
Renault took a gang of black slaves up the Mississippi. 
He bought these slaves at St. Domingo on his way over 
to this country. He came up as far as the Kaskaskia 
country, where he established himself. The following year, 
with a part of his slaves and some white miners, he went 
up to the present site of Galena and opened lead mines. 
The mining ventures were not satisfactory, and, after a 
few years, Renault, discouraged, returned to France, but 
his cargo of slaves was sold and distributed among the 
planters of the Illinois country. This was the beginning of 
slavery in Illinois, — just a hundred years later than its 
introduction into the Virginia colony. From that time 
until i860 the question of slavery did not cease to agitate 
the people of Illinois. 

France had given the colonists legal permission to hold 
slaves, and when, in 1763, England, by treaty, came into 
possession of the country, the French inhabitants were 
guaranteed their right and title to their slave property. 
When the United States took over this territory from Vir- 
ginia in 1785, it was supposed that this same protection was 
given in the deed by which Virginia ceded her interests in 
the lands. But when in 1787, the great ordinance was 
framed, this stipulation was ignored, and it was enacted 

116 



that "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servi- 
tude in said territory otherwise than in the punishment of 
crime." 

But the slaves were here, and the ordinance did not 
remove them. The whole territory in 1800 had about one 
hundred and thirty slaves. In 18 10 the IlHnois country 
alone had about one hundred and seventy, and in 1820 the 
number seems to have increased to about one thousand — 
this, however, probably included what were known as 
''indentured servants." 

The early settlements in Illinois were in the southern part 
of the state. They were made by people from slave-holding 
states, and it was very natural that the institution of slavery 
should find strong defense among them. Here and there ' 
were men of anti-slavery principles who insisted upon the 
enforcement of the provisions of the ordinance, but such 
were in the minority and could do little against the great 
mass of settlers and the interested slave-holding population 
along the border. It was impossible to enforce the law, 
although numerous subterfuges and evasions were made 
necessary in order to protect the increasing slave property. 

In 1803 a law was passed in the territorial legislature 
permitting persons to hold indentured servants and requir- 
ing the children of such servants to serve their masters 
until they were twenty-eight or thirty years of age. The 
slaves were taken before a notary and made oath that they 
had voluntarily entered into an agreement, as an indentured 
servant, with the master, and the shackles of slavery were, 
as effectually fastened upon them as if they were in Ken- 
tucky. The law gave the master thirty days in which to 
remove any servant who should decline to be a voluntary 
slave, and of course any such were hurried across the river 
and sold on legal slave territory. 

The laws enacted against the black man in these years 
were barbarous and degrading. No free negro could live 
in the state unless he could show a certificate of freedom 

117 



witnessed by some court. Any black man without such 
certificate could be arrested and sold as a runaway slave. 
Any servant found ten miles from home without a written 
permit could be whipped. A long list of such provisions, 
all repugnant to the letter and spirit of the ordinance which 
gave the legislature its existence, were passed by the terri- 
torial legislatures, all calculated to fasten slavery upon the 
state and to make it almost impossible for the contagious 
sentiment of freedom to spread, either among the whites or 
the blacks. 

There were stirring events in those days — from 1800 to 
1825 — in all the southern half of the state when this struggle 
for slavery or freedom was in progress. We cannot narrate 
incidents nor give in detail the stories that grew up in 
this connection, although many of them are intensely 
interesting. 

When Illinois became a state, in 18 18, she was obliged 
to repudiate slavery in her constitution. But this did not 
drive it out. We remember that the central part of the 
state was being filled with settlers at this time. The new 
counties were extending toward the north, and many of 
the people came from states where slavery did not exist, 
and sentiment against the institution was being cultivated 
by constant agitation. It was apparent to all that a bitter 
struggle was at hand to determine whether freedom or 
slavery should prevail in the state. 

In 1822 the contest for governor was waged upon the 
slavery issue. Edward Coles, the anti-slavery candidate, 
was elected; but there were two opposing candidates, both 
of whom favored slavery, and together they received more 
than half the votes. The legislature was overwhelmingly 
pro-slavery. 

Governor Coles at once forced the issue upon the legis- 
lature by recommending the immediate emancipation of all 
slaves in the state. The opposition, in their anger and sup- 
posed strength, determined to have an amendment made 

118 



to the constitution legalizing slavery in the state. Here, 
then, the issue was fairly stated in a call for a constitutional 
convention, and the appeal was made to the ballot box. 

The campaign of 1824 was perhaps the bitterest political 
battle ever fought in the state. Men, women and children 
took part in the agitations and discussions. Every man that 
had a right to vote was sought out and almost forced to 
go to the polls. The election proved a decided victory for 
the anti-slavery party. The cause of slavery in the state 
was dead. The opposition submitted to the will of the 
majority, and soon good-feeling prevailed where the strug- 
gle had been most bitter, and never again was an effort 
made to legalize slavery in Illinois. 

Illinois was redeemed from the curse of a slave state, 
but that did not remove the vexed question from the minds 
of her people. Just across the Ohio lay Kentucky, a slave 
state, and just beyond the Mississippi was Missouri, — ^both 
of them within swimming distance of free territory. Human 
nature cannot be put in bonds to legal enactments even 
when the laws are felt to be righteous; and when they are 
felt to be unrighteous, any expedient but open rebellion will 
often be used to evade them and do what is felt to be 
justice. 

Slavery is one of those questions that arouse the passions 
and stir the blood of all who listen to its story. It seems 
that the further removed the listener is from the field of 
actual contact, the more he is aroused and the more violent 
is his denunciation. 

Thousands of slaves escaped across the rivers into Illinois, 
and here they generally found champions and aids. White 
men organized societies with secret passwords and means 
of transportation for hurrying all such across the state to 
the Canadian frontier, which, could they but reach, guar- 
anteed freedom. Many and bitter were the contests on 
Illinois soil over these runaway slaves; but the "under- 
ground railroad," the secret routes of travel for the escaping 

119 



slave, continued to do an extensive business, and many a 
black man and woman traveled to liberty. 

There were men who dared to risk their property and 
their lives in speaking and writing against slavery in those 
days, and every man who did this whether in Boston or in 
Illinois, was in danger of mobs and ropes and bullets. 
Graves were opened and closed over many an advocate for 
freedom long before the lines of blue and gray faced each' 
other upon southern battlefields. 

The most prominent victim to the rage of the slave- 
holding sentiment furnished by Illinois was Elijah P. Love- 
joy, who, after suffering various personal abuses and 
mobbings, after having four printing presses destroyed 
because he insisted upon publishing a paper in which he 
opposed the holding of slaves, was shot and killed at Alton 
on the night of November 7, 1837. 

Love joy was killed by a mob. No one was ever punished 
for the crime, but it seemed to startle the state and to bring 
before all rational people the supreme importance of pro- 
tecting the right to a free expression of opinion on the part 
of the citizens of the state. This did not end mob violence, 
but from this time on it was less and less dangerous to stand 
in defense of freedom, until the bloody civil war came, 
bearing on its forefront the great emancipator, Abraham 
Lincoln, — also a citizen of Illinois, — under whose leadership 
slavery passed forever from the history of the United States. 



120 



CHAPTER XV 

THE BLACK HAWK WAR 

From the day when Joliet and Marquette stood at the out- 
skirts of the Indian village shouting for the inhabitants 
to come out and tell who they were, until 1832, this Illinois 
country had been the home of the red men. Long before 
that, they had roamed at will over these vast prairies, chas- 
ing the buffalo and the deer, setting their traps in the 
forests, catching fish from the streams, and gathering their 
harvests of corn and beans from the fertile hillsides. A 
hundred and fifty years had come and gone, bringing mar- 
velous changes in their wake. The curling smoke from 
Indian wigwams along the Wabash, the Ohio, the Embar- 
rass, the Illinois, had grown fainter and fainter, until it 
had entirely disappeared. Westward the white army of 
invasion had pushed its way until the Indian had been thrust 
beyond the great Father of Waters. In his slow but sullen 
retreat he had learned of the customs and vices of the men 
who came with the woodman's ax, the shovel and the plow. 
He made better wigwams and huts; he planted more and 
hunted less; he wore more clothes but drank more whisky 
and used more powder and ball. He had suffered much 
from slaughter, from burnings and devastations, from out- 
rages in cold blood and in anger, from treachery and deceit. 
The white man had been his evil angel, and, like some 
Nemesis, still pursued him, crying for blood and land. 

121 



The red man had repaid the debt of ingratitude, treachery 
and blood with interest. For every wigwam left tenantless, 
five scalps of white men had been nailed to the tent poles 
of the savages. For every village of huts burned or field of 
beans destroyed, a white man's house had gone up in flames 
and his children had gone fatherless to bed. It was a long, 
bloody tragedy, and the time has come when we shall lift 
the curtain for the last act so far as Illinois is concerned. 

Our state has had an honorable career. She can point to 
a proud record and a long list of worthy men and women 
whom neither hunger nor cold, flood nor drouth, suffering 
nor death, could quail or turn aside from the one great 
work of mapping out an inheritance for their successors 
in this beautiful valley of the great river. But in recounting 
all the deeds of daring and danger, in unrolling the tablets 
of honor and greatness, let none point to the story of the 
Black Hawk War. 

Black Hawk was an Indian leader. He was not a ruling 
chief according to Indian custom, but was a head man in 
time of war. He had many of the characteristics of leader- 
ship and some of the marks of great generalship. He was 
crafty, daring, independent and brave. Above all, he was 
proud, and gloried in the savagery of his race, hating the 
white man and all his customs and civilization. He belonged 
to the tribe of Sacs. This tribe had originally lived in 
the region of Lake Ontario, but had been crowded westward 
and still farther west until they located on the Rock river, in 
Illinois, near its juncture with the Mississippi. At some 
time in the history of the tribe it had come in contact with 
the tribe of Fox Indians, and, both belonging to north- 
eastern tribes and both being pressed by the enemy and 
in enforced retreat, they coalesced, forming a confederated 
tribe known as the Sacs and Foxes. At the time we come 
to know them in this story, Keokuk was the rightful chief 
of the tribe. 

Sometime soon after Tonti had left the Rock, these 

122 



Indians had come into possession of the country around the 
mouth of the Rock river, and even claimed the country 
as far west as the middle of the present state of Iowa. 
Their chief village and headquarters was near Rock Island 
on the banks of the Rock river. Here they had lived for 
years, and here they had erected a good class of houses to 
the number of five hundred, capable of sheltering several 
thousand people. Around this village they had cleared 
some seven hundred acres of ground, and upon it they 
cultivated their yearly crops of corn and beans. One of the 
most attractive spots today along this most beautiful river 
in Illinois is the height of land known as Black Hawk's 
watch-tower. A summer hotel has been placed on this 
eminence, and here the resorter can stand on the white man's 
porch and look up and down the river, with all its broad and 
shimmering valley as it reaches away for miles through 
distant fields and meadows, and reflect that here the Indian 
stood, looking out over the same natural scenery, seeing the 
fires and homesteads of the hated enemies of his race 
growing ever nearer and nearer. Here he could stand and 
watch his squaws planting their seed or gathering their 
harvests, see his young men practicing games of the chase 
or of war, or bathing in the silver stream that flowed at his 
feet; see on the adjacent hillside the silent graves of his 
fathers where for generations they had been laid to rest. 
No generous soul can stand on this spot and recall the story 
of Black Hawk without a tinge of shame creeping over his 
face as he looks and remembers. It was here, probably, 
that Black Hawk was born in 1767, and here he grew to 
manhood. He was born after the French and Indian War, 
under the regime of the British, and to them he was always 
loyal, and perhaps from them he received the fatal sugges- 
tions that lead to his downfall. 

After the Revolutionary War our government was very 
active in making treaties with the Indian tribes in the process 
of getting peaceable possession of their lands, that they 

123 



might be sold to settlers. In this way most of the lands in 
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois had been turned over to the 
whites, and the Indians had moved on to the westward. The 
wave of immigration and settlement had passed the Illinois 
river, and there was a demand for more of the Indian lands. 

In 1804, William Henry Harrison was governor of 
Indiana territory, of which Illinois was at that time a part. 
He convened the Indian chiefs at St. Louis, five chiefs repre- 
senting the Fox and Sacs and the Winnebagoes, it is said, 
and there entered into a treaty with them by which they 
agreed to cede to the United States all the lands between the 
Illinois river and the Mississippi, and also a large body of 
land lying in Wisconsin. In all, this treaty covered about 
fifteen million acres of land, a princely kingdom, and for 
it the United States was to take these tribes into its friend- 
ship and to make to the Sacs and Foxes an annual payment 
of one thousand dollars in goods. It can be seen that 
Governor Harrison valued friendship pretty high. Black 
Hawk took no part in this transaction, and he declared that 
the chiefs were made drunk and persuaded to sign the 
treaty. This treaty provided that the tribes might retain 
possession of the lands until they were actually sold, and 
that in the meantime no citizens of the United States were 
to be allowed to make settlements upon the lands. 

Upon the breaking out of the War of 1812, the Sacs and 
Foxes offered their services to the United States, but were 
refused, and they then gave their aid to the British. At 
the close of the war a new treaty was made with the Indians, 
but Black Hawk did not sign this treaty either. In 1827 
the Winnebagoes made an outbreak upon the settlers and 
were put down by military force, and several of the leaders 
were executed. Black Hawk was believed to have been in 
part responsible for this outbreak, and was kept a prisoner 
for some time, but was finally released. Some three years 
later than this, in 1830, another treaty was made with the 
Indians at Prairie du Chien. The Sacs and Foxes were 

124 



represented at this gathering by Keokuk, their chief. He 
signed the treaty for his tribe. In this treaty Black Hawk 
again took no part. This treaty ceded all the lands east of 
the Mississippi to the United States, and Keokuk agreed 
to remove his people to the west side of the river. This he 
succeeded in doing except so far as Black Hawk's following 
was concerned. 

In the spring of 1831, when Black Hawk and his band of 
men and women, after a winter of hunting, returned to their 
village on the Rock river, they found it occupied by the 
whites, and it was said that the very ground on which stood 
the Hawk's cabin had been bought by a fur-trader. War 
seemed certain, but by some diplomacy upon the part of a 
few white men an agreement was reached by which both 
whites and Indians were to remain in the village and the 
lands were to be divided between them for cultivation. Of 
course trouble broke out. The whites complained of abuses 
by the Indians, and the Indians made counter claims of 
destroyed crops, burned cabins and indignities offered to 
Indian men and women. It is very probable that the Indians 
were the greater sufferers, but, be that as it may, a call was 
sent to the governor asking for state aid to repel the Indians, 
who were represented as being upon the verge of a general 
outbreak. Governor Reynolds at once responded by calling 
out the militia and also sending word to General Gaines, in 
charge of the United States garrison, asking for cooperation. 
On the seventh of June a conference was held at Fort 
Armstrong, on Rock island, between Governor Reynolds 
and General Gaines on the part of the whites, and some 
twenty or more Indians, including Keokuk and Black Hawk. 

An agreement was dravv^n up and signed by both sides. 
In this agreement the Indians promised to remove to the 
west side of the river and to remain there and to keep in 
control the unruly members of their tribe. Rations were 
distributed among the Indians, who were in an almost starv- 
ing condition, then they all withdrew to the west side of the 

125 



river, and the war scare was over. The militia was dis- 
banded and with the governor returned to their homes. 

Black Hawk had gone to the west side of the river with 
his people, but he was discontented and went with the feel- 
ings of a man who is acting under compulsion, suffering 
from a wrong. In April of the following year (1832), 
gathering his people about him to the number of several 
hundred, he recrossed the river. He passed by the village 
which had been his home for so many years, and proceeded 
on up the Rock river. General Atkinson, who was in 
command of the garrison at Fort Armstrong, sent word 
to him that he was violating his treaty and ordered him 
to return. The Hawk replied that he was on his way to 
the home of the Winnebagoes, who had invited him to come 
among them to raise a crop. 

Doubtless, Black Hawk knew that he was breaking his 
treaty obligations by crossing the river. Doubtless he also 
reasoned that so long as he refrained from committing any 
outrages or in any way disturbing the whites, he would 
be permitted to go his way undisturbed. When he reached 
a town of the Winnebagoes, about forty miles up the Rock 
river, he became convinced that this tribe did not intend 
to give him any aid, but would simply use him and his 
people for their own advantage in dealing with the whites. 
He decided to return to his quarters beyond the Mississippi, 
when, to his surprise, he learned that the whites had called 
out their army, declared war against him, and were on his 
track. Angered and desperate, he decided to continue on 
his way up the river. He proceeded to the neighborhood of 
Dixon and here made a temporary halt. 

When Black Hawk crossed the Mississippi, the whole 
border region sent forth the cry of alarm. The savages were 
loose and on the warpath. The governor of the state was 
appealed to for immediate assistance, and he promptly re- 
plied. Early in May, about two thousand militiamen from 
the state and about five hundred regulars under General 

126 



Atkinson were assembled at Fort Armstrong, ready for an 
advance movement. Black Hawk had followed the Rock 
river, and up this stream. Governor Reynolds with his two 
thousand militiamen on land, and General Atkinson with 
his five hundred regulars and the provisions, by boat, started 
out on the ninth of May. Those of us who have lived in this 
region about the first of May can imagine the time this 
force of raw recruits had plowing through the mud and 
enduring the endless rains that are sure accompaniments of 
this season. Black Hawk kept in advance. The army 
reached Dixon's ford in about three days, and here they 
learned that Black Hawk's band had separated in order to 
hunt for food. At this place the army was increased by some 
three or four hundred men under Major Stillman and Major 
Bailey, who had recruited these men along the frontier to 
help put down the Indians. These two undisciplined and 
rude companies of frontiersmen insisted upon being allowed 
to scout the country in the effort to find the Hawk and 
bring him to a stand. This they were given permission 
to do, so on the thirteenth of May they started out from 
Dixon and marched to the northeast nearly thirty miles, 
reaching a small stream on the evening of the fourteenth, 
and here they decided to camp, not suspecting any Indians 
in the neighborhood. Scarcely were they dismounted when 
their attention was called to three Indians bearing a white 
flag. It is said, and let us hope it is true, that many of 
Stillman's men had been drinking and were too drunken 
to know what they were doing. Be that as it may, a shout 
went up, and, mounting in hot haste, the savages were 
charged and driven with lashings and beatings into the 
camp. Soon five more Indians were seen upon a hill, and 
chase was again given and two of these were killed, while 
the other three escaped to Black Hawk's camp, two or three 
miles away, where they reported to their chief that they alone 
of all his truce party were left alive. 

What had happened was this: When Black Hawk ob- 

127 



served the advance of the white men he supposed that they 
v^^ere being led by General Atkinson, with whom he was well 
acquainted. He decided to ask for a parley. So he sent 
two of his men forward with a flag of truce, and in order 
to know just what might befall them he had sent five braves 
to watch them from a distance. It was these truce parties 
that Stillman's drunken soldiers had seen and chased, shoot- 
ing them to death. When Black Hawk learned how his 
overtures for a parley had been received, he was filled with 
indignation and wrath. Gathering his few braves about 
him, mounted on ponies, he set out to meet the enemy. As 
they reached the open fields they beheld Stillman's men, 
three hundred strong, rushing toward them. They retired 
behind a fringe of trees and waited the coming of their 
white foe. As the militia approached, beholding the Indians, 
they came to a sudden stand. But Black Hawk, uttering 
the war-whoop, dashed out upon them with his little com- 
pany numbering not more than fifty. Without firing a shot, 
the frontiersmen wheeled their horses and dashed away, 
with the Indians in full pursuit. At dark the Indians called 
a halt, but all night long the frightened militia kept on 
through swamps and creeks until they dashed into Dixon, 
twenty-five miles away, and spread the report that the whole 
Indian force, thousands strong, were sweeping the country 
behind them. Many of them did not stop even here, but 
hurried on, not dismounting until they reached their homes 
and were safe in the arms of their families. The whites 
had eleven men killed in this encounter. The next day the 
entire army of twenty-five hundred men marched to the 
scene of the conflict, where they found and buried the eleven 
men lost in Stillman's rout. 

The defeat of Stillman's party completely demoralized the 
militia force. The men demanded that they be discharged 
and permitted to go home. The governor at once called for 
a new levy of two thousand volunteers, and, marching the 
demoralized militia to Ottawa, he discharged them. 

128 



General Atkinson with the regulars went to Dixon to await 
the coming together of the new recruits. 

The effect of Stillman's blunder was to expose the entire 
Illinois frontier to the merciless warfare of the savage. 
Black Hawk felt that he had been mistreated in his attempt 
to conduct an honorable armistice and arrange for terms 
of return to the west side of the river. His band and all 
they could incite to take part with them were turned loose 
to burn and plunder wherever they could find a white man 
or a white man's settlement. So the border line, from 
Galena by the way of Princeton, Peru and Ottawa, with 
their outlying settlements, was made the scene of carnage 
and bloodshed. A number of settlers were killed in open 
conflict or from ambush, and several skirmishes occurred 
between forces of the white men and the Indians; but 
about the twenty-second of June, Black Hawk, after a 
defeat at Kellogg's grove, retreated toward the north. He 
was followed by General Atkinson with the whole American 
force, amounting to about four thousand men. Black Hawk 
took refuge among the hills of Wisconsin, and the discour- 
aged white troops were divided into several groups and 
placed where they might protect the frontier. One detach- 
ment of these troops under General Henry learned that 
Black Hawk was stationed on the Rock river toward the 
north. They immediately started in pursuit with about 
one thousand men. Black Hawk retreated to the Wisconsin 
river. He passed by the site of the present Madison and, 
pushing on, was overtaken on the bluffs of the Wisconsin 
about twenty-five miles beyond. Here he made a stand 
and a severe battle was fought. More than one hundred 
and fifty Indians fell in this slaughter, while but one white 
man was lost. Black Hawk crossed the river and started 
for the Mississippi, hoping to reach it and to cross before 
his enemy could overtake him. The Indian band was 
reduced to the verge of starvation. They peeled the bark 
from the trees for food as they went. Many of their 

129 



LAKE 




) 'The black line Indicates the 
route Lincoin is supposed to 
have followed with the army 
as far as Whitewater, where 
he was dismissed. When the 
ariny sUrted from near Otta- 
wa, after the 20th of June, to 
follow the Indians up Rock 
River, Lincoln's battalion Vvas 
«ent towards the northwest, and joined the main 
army near Lake Koshkonong early in July 
Soon after he went to Wh;tewater, where, about 
[Uie middle of the month, his battalion was dis- 
Mnded, and he returned by foot and canoe to 
new Salem. The dotted line shows the route 
he is supposed to have taken. The towns named 
on the map are those with which Lincoln was 
;COQaected cjiher \a bis legal or his political Kfe. 



MAP OF 

ILLINOIS 

AND PART OF 
laCHIfljlB TERBITOSr 

6H0WINQ 

LINCOLN'S SUPPOSED LINEOpI 

MARCH IN SLACK HAWK WAR 

ecAti or mm 



130 



wounded and starved fell out of the ranks and died along 
the trail. By such signs they marked the line of their 
retreat from the Wisconsin to the banks of the Mississippi. 
Behind them was the relentless army of destruction. 

About the first of August the Indian refugees reached the 
bluffs of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Bad Axe 
river. Here they could find no boats, and only two canoes 
could be mustered for the whole band. Making a raft, it 
was loaded with women, children and old men, and launched 
for the opposite shore, but in midstream it was capsized 
and most of the occupants were drowned. In the midst of 
these futile efforts to escape, the army of General Henry 
appeared upon the scene on August 2. All the forces of the 
whites had been reunited and were engaged in the pursuit. 
On the day previous, as the Indians were trying to cross 
the river, a supply boat, the Warrior, engaged to carry 
supplies for the forces along the river, appeared, and Black 
Hawk asked that a boat be sent ashore to receive his people, 
as he wished to surrender. But instead of complying, the 
boat answered with discharges of grape and canister, mow- 
ing down the savages as they were huddled in groups on 
the shore. The discharge was answered by a fire of mus- 
ketry, and for a few minutes the duel continued, when the 
boat steamed away, with one man wounded, but leaving 
over a score of Indians dead upon the shore. 

Little need be said of what followed after the white army 
of pursuit came upon the disheartened and starving Indians 
upon the morning of the second of August. The massacre 
was begun and carried forward as rapidly as possible. 
The steamboat Warrior returned to add its fire to the 
attack of the land force and to prevent any from swimming 
across the river. In three hours it was all over. One 
hundred and fifty Indians were killed in the fight, fully as 
many were drowned in efforts to cross the river; only 
fifty were taken prisoners. Black Hawk's band was anni- 
hilated, and few were the messengers left to carry the tale 

131 



to the huts of the Sacs and Foxes in their new homes to 
the west of the Mississippi. Black Hawk succeeded in 
escaping with a few of his braves. He took refuge with 
his friends, the Winnebagoes. But he was too dangerous 
a guest to be kept in hiding, so the Winnebagoes gave him 
up to the United States forces and he was taken away to 
prison. He was taken to Fortress Monroe, and then to 
some of the principal cities of the East, to show him how 
hopeless was the red man's struggle against the white in- 
vader; then he was returned to Fort Armstrong, where he 
was turned over to Chief Keokuk, who became responsible 
for his future good behavior. He was held by the United 
States government to be guilty of nothing worthy of death, 
as he had conducted honorable warfare in his struggle for 
life. 

Black Hawk died in Davis county, Iowa, on the third of 
October, 1838, supposed to have been seventy-one years 
of age. 

Thus lived, struggled, and perished one of the best speci- 
mens of Indian manhood that had come in contact with the 
white settlements. He saw the degradation of his race 
and read their certain doom in the approaching settlements 
of the whites. His proud spirit rebelled against the fate 
marked out for him and his people. Outraged in his sense 
of savage justice, he swore eternal hatred against the sup- 
planters of his race, and in his poor savage way made 
blunders and committed crimes in no sense worse or more 
barbarous than were those committed against him and his 
by the paleface foe. Driven from his home, in the des- 
peration of hunger and humiliation he dug up the hatchet, 
and ended as many another struggling for freedom has 
ended, by digging the graves of his people. 



132 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE MORMONS IN ILLINOIS 

About forty-five miles above Quincy, and nine miles below 
Fort Madison, the Mississippi makes a bend or elbow, 
forming a blunt promontory. This promontory slopes grad- 
ually upward from the river, which bounds it on three sides, 
thus forming one of the most beautiful, pleasing and advan- 
tageous sites for a town that can well be imagined. A 
gentleman by the name of Isaac Gallard had owned this 
tract of land and had made some improvements upon it for 
a country home. He decided to establish a trading station 
on the river, and for this purpose laid off town lots and 
named the place Commerce. The town did not grow 
rapidly, and up to 1840 there were not more than about 
twenty houses. 

In the autumn of 1839 some strangers appeared at Com- 
merce and purchased from the owners the town site and 
the adjoining lands. These men were the agents of the 
Mormon church, that had recently come into prominence. 

The founder of this church organization was Joseph 
Smith, a native of Vermont, but from early childhood resi- 
dent with his parents near Palmyra, New York. It is not 
easy to sift the real truth from the mass of contradictory 
evidence produced by his detractors and his supporters. 
But, apparently, Joseph's parents were poor, ignorant, 
superstitious and indolent. The morals of the family were 

133 



not reputed to be of the best. Joseph received Httle school- 
ing, but, in spite of all the claims by friend and foe, of 
his utter ignorance, we are satisfied from the work he did 
that he had a mind that was keen, shrewd and imaginative. 
He was bold, fearless and shameless throughout his whole 
career. 

About 1827, Joseph claimed to have found in a hill near 
Palmyra a set of golden plates upon which was written a 
history of an extinct people and a divine revelation. The 
writing was claimed to be in a late Egyptian character, and 
two stones were found with the plates, by looking through 
which Joseph was enabled to read and translate the writing. 
The Lord had told him where to dig for the plates and how 
to use them. With a few associates, who claimed to have 
seen the plates, he proceeded to translate the inscriptions 
and to publish the same as the Book of Mormon. The 
translation was completed by the year 1830, and in April 
of that year he seems to have gathered about him all whom 
he had up to that time induced to join him, and organized 
them into a church. The Book of Mormon was supple- 
mented from time to time by direct revelation to the 
Prophet Joseph, as he had need, concerning the most trivial 
as well as the most important affairs. 

It is marvelous that in this age and in such a community 
a doctrine based upon credulity and lust could find a soil 
for growth and that it could so extend its influence that 
within twenty years it could claim six hundred thousand 
deluded followers, gathered from all parts of Europe and 
America. 

Joseph Smith moved to Kirtland^ near Cleveland, Ohio. 
From this place they sent out missionaries to preach their 
gospel and make new converts and form new settlements. 
Joseph received a revelation that their Zion with its temple 
was to be in Missouri, and thither a number of them went, 
buying up a tract of land in Jackson county and selecting a 
temple site at what is now called Independence. The 

134 



stranger there is still shown the "temple site" upon which 
many Mormons believe their final temple is to be builded 
when the triumphant saints shall be gathered to the Zion 
foretold by their Prophet Joseph. 

Joseph, with his brother Hyrum, the patriarch and high- 
priest of the church, were forced to leave Kirtland wear- 
ing a coat of tar and feathers, because of business and 
social irregularities, and they joined the hosts gathered in 
Missouri. But their vrays were not the ways of the land, 
and war, open and merciless, was waged by the people of 
Jackson and Clay counties against the newcomers. With 
mob violence, clash of arms, destruction of property, and 
shedding of blood, the contest was carried on until at last 
the Mormons were forced to sell out their possessions for 
what they could get and leave the state. 

It was to provide for this migration that the advance 
agents of the church, looking for a location, had selected 
and bought the site at Commerce in the autumn of 1839. 
The name was changed to Nauvoo, meaning the blessed, 
and early in the spring of 1840, large delegations of Mor- 
mons began to arrive. Within four years the population 
of the town grew to over fifteen thousand souls. 

When the ''saints" (the name they chose for themselves) 
reached Nauvoo, their leader, Joseph Smith, and his brother 
were prisoners in Missouri. By some means they managed 
to elude their guards and, escaping from the state, reached 
their haven at Nauvoo. Here every device known to craft 
and diplomacy was used to secure the Mormon population 
absolute freedom from arrest or gentile interference. The 
democrats and whigs were at that time struggling for 
political control of the state, and both desired the Mormon 
vote. It was easy, therefore, for the city of Nauvoo to 
obtain almost anything desired in the way of special legis- 
lation. The session of the legislature of 1840-41 granted 
a sweeping charter which in some particulars placed the 
authority of the city government above that of the state 

135 



legislature. It provided for the organization of the Nauvoo 
legion to act as a part of the state militia, with arms fur- 
nished by the state, and granted a charter for a university. 

Out of these plenary powers grew the difficulties that 
lead to the expulsion of the Mormons from the state, 
although it must needs have been that under any provisions 
whatever difficulties could not be avoided. The clannish 
spirit and theocratic organization of the saints made it im- 
possible for them to live peaceably with their neighbors at 
any time or in any place. 

In 1844 came the beginning of the end of Mormon prac- 
tice and prosperity in Illinois. Nauvoo at that time was a 
thriving city. Every known industry was being carried 
on and never was a people more industrious. New acces- 
sions of numbers with a considerable sprinkling of wealth 
was constantly arriving from Europe and the eastern states. 
The well organized missionary enterprises of the church 
gave abundant evidence of the wisdom with which they 
had been planned by the prophet. But, like Babylon of old, 
in the height of its glory and promise, this new made city 
upon the hills overlooking the great river, was doomed to 
desolation and its inhabitants destined to drink to the very 
dregs the cup of want and suffering. 

The officials of Missouri made several efforts to get pos- 
session of the fugitives who had fled from justice in that 
state. But Joseph, the prophet, sometimes by force, some- 
times by fraud and sometimes by the interference of the 
courts evaded extradition to the soil of Missouri. The 
Nauvoo legion, consisting of four thousand well drilled and 
equipped soldiers, all of the Mormon faith and pledged to 
do the will of the prophet, excited the fear and distrust of 
the surrounding people. Many robberies and murders had 
been committed on both sides of the river and incriminating 
evidence pointed towards Nauvoo. Retaliation was prac- 
ticed upon the Mormons living in other parts of the coun- 
try. Several thousands of them lived outside the limits of 

136 



Nauvoo. About 1842 the revelation concerning polygamy 
seems to have made its appearance among the leaders, and 
a knowledge of its practice was gradually rumored about 
the country. Stories of dreadful immorality excited the 
gentile population and caused a disaffection in the ranks of 
the saints. Everything was ready for an explosion and 
only waited for an occasion. What was intended as a 
means for removing the tension proved to be the spark 
leading to the powder magazine. 

Governor Ford decided to visit Hancock county in person 
to investigate the complaints and endeavor to pour oil upon 
the troubled waters. Whether wisely or not, some of the 
militia of the adjoining counties was called out to guar- 
antee peace and quiet. The prophet Joseph, hearing of 
this, at once declared Nauvoo under martial law and called 
out the Nauvoo legion of four thousand militiamen. War 
was in the air and passion was stirred to its tensest point 
on both sides. But the leaders seemed to realize the serious- 
ness of the crisis and used great caution. Smith finally 
surrendered the arms of the state and agreed to surrender 
himself and his brother to the courts. In a few days they 
did this, going unguarded to Carthage, the county seat, and 
givmg themselves up. They were placed in the Carthage 
jail to await a hearing. The militia, except a few men 
retained as guards, was disbanded, and the governor thought 
the storm was over. He assured the Mormons that they 
were safe in their persons and property, and himself pro- 
ceeded to Nauvoo to investigate upon the ground some 
of the charges made. While the governor was absent in 
Nauvoo, upon the afternoon of June 24, 1844, a mob of 
fifty men made an attack upon the Carthage jail, killed both 
Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and wounded one of the two 
Mormon elders who were at that time visiting with them in 
the jail. The excitement among the gentiles was intense. 
The mob scattered and fled. It was expected that the 
Mormon legion would at once sweep the county in venge- 

137 



ance. But the Mormons seemed stunned and made no at- 
tempt to retaliate. They proceeded sadly to Carthage for 
their dead, and, carrying them back to their city, gave them 
honorable burial. 

It could not be otherwise than that a state of war, bitter 
and merciless, should be carried on from this time forth 
between the Mormons and their gentile neighbors. Which 
was most to blame cannot be well determined. Hundreds 
of houses went up in flames and many lives were sacrificed 
in open warfare or more dreaded assassination. The people 
in the surrounding counties were aroused and gave notice 
in most positive terms that the Mormons must cross the 
river and leave the state. So riotous were the disorders 
of the following year that the state militia was called out 
to preserve the peace, and finally the Mormons, seeing no 
alternative, agreed to leave the state if given a reasonable 
time in which to dispose of their property and make the 
needed preparation. 

All the winter of 1845-6, every house in Nauvoo was a 
workshop. The temple, not yet complete, resounded with 
the sounds of hammers and saws. It is said that twelve 
thousand wagons were made during those months. Before 
spring, Brigham Young, who had been chosen head of the 
church in place of Joseph Smith, hearing that federal offi- 
cers were on their trail for various offenses, decided to 
hasten their departure. On the fifteenth of February, in 
the dead of winter, the vanguard of that migrating city, 
to the number of two thousand, set out, crossing the Mis- 
sissippi on the ice. About the middle of May a second 
detachment followed. Those who still remained around 
their desolate homes, trying to sell what little remained at 
any price that would enable them to provide for the journey 
before them, were assaulted, mobbed and goaded to des- 
peration by the surrounding gentile population. 

The people claimed to fear that the remnant of the Mor- 
mons did not intend to leave the place. This remnant was 

138 



forced to gather together in haste what they could and flee 
for their Hves to the Iowa side of the river. 

The pioneers of the vanguard reached Salt Lake in July, 
1847, ^ y^^^ ^^^ 3. half after starting. The other detach- 
ments were scattered from the deserts of Utah to the Mis- 
sissippi river, — a struggling, suffering mass, enduring heat 
and cold, thirst and hunger, disease and nakedness, death, 
in all its terrible forms, marking their road across the west- 
ern wilderness and mountains with the graves of their loved 
ones, in obedience to a faith the most degrading and servile 
in the history of this country. Perhaps never since the dark 
ages has there been such a remarkable migration of a nation 
in the face of difficulties as this movement of the Mormons 
to Salt Lake. It is a fascinating episode in the history of 
political and social institutions as well as in the history of 
religions, but, having seen the Mormons across the river, 
free from the state of Illinois, we must refer you to other 
sources for a study of their peculiar institutions and the 
sacrifices they were called upon to make for them. 



139 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL 

The one great problem which an advancing civiHzation 
must meet and solve is that of transportation. Without 
readiness of communication there can be little growth or 
development. The fringe of frontier settlements will remain 
stationary for years unless means of passmg to and fro 
can be provided for those who live upon the outskirts or 
who wish to pass from the more thickly settled regions 
toward the frontier. We read that when Washington was 
inaugurated the means of transportation were so poor that 
the members of Congress could not reach New York in time 
for the ceremony on the fourth of March and it had to be 
postponed until the thirtieth of April. The roads were 
swampy and for hundreds of miles the statesmen had to 
ride through forests and across mountains, swimming rivers 
and threading ravines for weeks in order to reach the seat 
of government. If the country was to develop it must be 
provided with better means of communication. The histo- 
rian accounts for the great advance of the Greek people 
over other peoples of their times by pointing to their in- 
dented shores and calling attention to the fact that no Greek 
lived more than forty miles from the sea. They became 
a commercial people, going and coming between all the 
ports of the Mediterranean. Communication was easy and 

140 



Greek thought was accelerated and brightened by this con- 
stant activity between distant parts. 

About the time this country began to feel the need of 
some better means of communication, an English company 
had devised the scheme of building canals, and one was 
opened in England about 1760. Our fathers proposed to 
adopt this scheme, especially as they figured out that a horse 
could draw upon a canal about thirty times as much as it 
could draw in a wagon upon a good road. Their ideas still 
clung to the Atlantic seaboard, and in those days the domi- 
nating idea was one of fear of war and foreign invasion. 
So it came about that the first thoughts of canal-building 
were confined to the making of a line of coast canals not 
far from the Atlantic, so that trade might be carried on in 
case of a blockade or the coast might be defended by boats 
protected from the exposure and dangers of the ocean. 
This canal system was to reach from Boston Bay to Buz- 
zard's Bay, then by way of the Long Island Sound to New 
York, then on by way of the inland rivers and bays to the 
Carolinas. The first and only part of this scheme ever 
really completed was the Dismal Swamp section in Virginia, 
which was opened in 1794. 

The possibilities of canal transportation, however, were 
demonstrated, and the canal fever began to rise in the pulse 
of the nation. All sorts of projects, some wise and many 
unwise, took possession of the different settlements, all 
struggling for trade and means of communication. 

A good passageway between the East and the West was 
absolutely necessary if the western lands were to be success- 
fully cultivated. The Alleghanies stood as an insurmount- 
able barrier to the canal projects. But it finally came to 
be realized that the Hudson river had cut the northern 
mountain ridge in twain and from the Atlantic to Troy there 
was navigation by boat. To the west of Troy, stretching 
way off to the lake, was a vast reach of comparatively level 
land. Why not join the river and the lakes? — then the 

141 



way would be opened to the very heart of the great West. 
It was a big undertaking, biit a great man was in position 
to sieze the opportunity, and he did it. DeWitt CUnton, 
the governor of New York, fathered the project, and spared 
no sacrifice nor energy nor money until a cask of water 
had been carried by boat from Lake Erie to the harbor 
at New York and there poured into the ocean, with great 
ceremony, celebrating the wedding of the inland lakes with 
the sea. This was a great day for New York, — for all this 
country, — and Governor Clinton was the hero of the 
continent. 

This successful inauguration of canal-building occurred 
in 1825. It gave a great impetus to similar enterprises all 
over the country. Ohio, Indiana and Michigan all took up 
the work and thousands of miles of canals were built, adding 
to the development of these states. Of course the demand 
for canals soon reached Illinois, then just beginning to see 
her great possibilities and to feel how sorely she was tram- 
meled by lack of public highways. The one great monu- 
ment to this sublime devotion to an industrial purpose still 
standing, in doubtful honor, is the Illinois and Michigan 
canal. 

This canal was to connect Lake Michigan with the Mis- 
sissippi river, beginning at Chicago and following the Des- 
plaines and Illinois rivers as far as LaSalle, and there con- 
necting with the Illinois, which was capable of completing 
the navigable connection with the Mississippi. The canal 
itself is ninety-six miles long, six feet deep, and sixty feet 
wide at the water line. 

Before Illinois became a state, the attention of Congress 
had been called to the desirability of building such a canal 
in order to connect the Lakes and the Gulf, but nothing 
had been done. After the admission to the Union, the 
state took the matter up and years of discussion and effort 
were spent in trying to bring about the consummation of 
' the scheme. In 1822, Congress granted a right of way 

142 



for the building of the canal, and the state legislature 
appropriated money for survey and charts. It was esti- 
mated that the canal would cost about six hundred thousand 
dollars, a large sum for those days. But the young state 
shouldered the responsibility and went at the work with 
western enthusiasm. In 1827, Congress donated about two 
hundred and twenty-five thousand acres of land lying along 
the route of the canal, to aid in its construction. 

Actual work upon the digging began in 1836. With this 
beginning of canal-building commenced also the growth 
and importance of Chicago. The canal lands turned the 
village into a thriving real estate center. No one can tell 
the nervous energy, the disheartening rebuffs, the discour- 
agements, the sacrifices of the brave and heroic frontiers- 
men from 1823, when the first board of commissioners was 
appointed, to 1836, when the work was actually begun. 
Thirteen years of waiting! And who could adequately tell 
the heart-breakings, the trials, the bitter disappointments 
that followed along with the history of that canal until 
water was finally turned into it in 1848? Twelve years 
more added to the thirteen, — a quarter of a century getting 
ninety-six miles of canal in operation ! Instead of costing 
six hundred thousand dollars, as estimated, it cost over six 
million dollars, — ten times the estimate. But it was a great 
investment. It was worth to the state all it cost. It at once 
began returning princely revenues to the state treasury, as 
well as adding to the increase of population by immigra- 
tion. Up to 1879 the canal had cost about six and a half 
million dollars and had returned, for lands and earnings, 
eight million nine hundred thousand dollars. Could it have 
been completed a decade sooner it would have added mill- 
ions to the wealth of the state before the locomotive began 
hurrying across the prairies shrieking its "haw, haw" at the 
slow-moving canal-boat. 

Two other canal projects should be glanced at in this 
connection. The Illinois and Mississippi canal, which is 

143 



generally known in the state as the Hennepin canal, was 
projected to connect the upper Mississippi and the Illinois 
rivers. As far back as 1871 the preliminary surveys were 
made for this canal, and thereafter it became an important 
element in the politics of the western part of the state. 
Work was begun upon the building of the canal in 1892, and 
water was turned into it in 1907. Whether it will ever 
return an equivalent for the eight million or more dollars 
that have been expended in its construction is a question 
for the next few years to answer. 

The Chicago drainage canal is the most expensive of 
canal-building and engineering projects undertaken in this 
country. The immediate purpose of this canal was not to 
furnish transportation but to furnish an outlet for the 
sewage of the city of Chicago. The canal connects with 
the Chicago river within the city, and empties itself into 
the Desplaines at or near Joliet. The total length is about 
forty miles. The work of digging this canal was begun 
in September, 1892, and water was turned into it on the 
second of January, 1900. The channel is about one hundred 
and fifty feet wide at the bottom — its width varies some- 
what in different sections — and about twenty-two feet in 
depth. It is supposed to give free passage to three hundred 
thousand cubic feet of water per minute. The entire cost 
of the structure has been approximately forty million dol- 
lars. The funds for this astonishing enterprise, the great- 
est perhaps in all the world for caring for the sewage of a 
city, have been supplied by taxation upon what is known as 
the Chicago Sanitary District, authorized by the legislature 
and lying wholly within Cook county. 



144 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE ADVENT OF THE RAILROADS 

In i8i2, when war was raging along the frontier, and later, 
in 1814, when the awful massacre occurred at Fort Dear- 
born, there was no way to travel from one point to another 
except by wagon, horse, or on foot. Had there been rail- 
way communication with Fort Wayne there had been no 
occasion for the bronze monument now standing at the foot 
of Eighteenth street. In 1832, when the Black Hawk War 
was on. General Winfield Scott was ordered from Fortress 
Monroe on the Atlantic seaboard to the scene of action 
with a body of United States regulars. He was eighteen 
days making the journey. What with the slow methods 
of transportation and what with the delays caused by the 
outbreak of cholera among his troops he did not reach the 
seat of war until hostilities were all over, so he played no 
part in the conflict. How things have changed within these 
years covering scarcely the life of one generation ! Should 
an outbreak against law and order occur now at Cairo, 
within twenty-four hours ten thousand troopers could be 
in charge of that city, coming from Chicago, Freeport, 
Rockford, or from the garrison at Fort Sheridan. Instead 
of sending messengers on foot or horseback across the 
country, the tidings would be flashed in a minute to the 
uttermost parts of the earth. 

The railroads brought a new kind of life into the world. 

145 



Wherever they have gone, old things have passed away 
and all things have become new. It is sometimes doubted 
whether the new is any better than the old. Indeed, many 
are inclined to believe that the changes wrought have been 
for the worse and are able to produce very strong argu- 
ments for their side of the question ; but, be that as it may, 
we know that the old order has passed away ; it has gone 
forever, and we must adapt ourselves to the ever-changing 
conditions of the present if we would not waste our lives 
in useless fault-findings. 

In the very year DeWitt Clinton opened the Erie canal, 
the first railroad was operated in the United States. And 
curious to state, it was used for the purpose of removing the 
dirt from the canal being dug between the Delaware and 
the Chesapeake. In 1831 a road began operations between 
Albany and Schenectady in New York. These were little 
more than tramways and might be used by horse power as 
well as by steam power. In 1829 the first road built for 
steam only was opened in South Carolina between Charles- 
ton and Columbia. When the Illinois and Michigan canal 
project was under discussion it was proposed at one time to 
substitute a railroad for the canal, and the legislature gave 
its permission. But it was not done, and the first railroad 
actually to go into operation was in 1837, when a little road 
was built in St. Clair county for the purpose of shipping 
coal into St. Louis. This road used horse power instead 
of steam. 

From 1832 until 1840 a wave of enthusiasm for public 
improvements swept over the state of Illinois. The credit 
of the state was pledged to the building and equipping 
of roads to such an extent that it was brought to the verge 
of bankruptcy. Into the details of these troubles we cannot 
enter. It was a stormy time, and only by the greatest good 
fortune did the state escape financial ruin. 

As early as 1831, propositions for the building of a north 
and south line of road through the state were discussed. 

146 



A charter was finally granted, in 1836, to a company to 
build the road. It was a great undertaking in those days. 
There were no rolling-mills in this country and all the rails 
had to be bought in England, costing about fifty dollars a 
ton. The work was new and cost more in every depart- 
ment than the estimators supposed. Several companies that 
undertook the work failed one after the other. Even the 
state attempted to build the road, but failed, as had the 
others. So the years from 1836 to 185 1 passed in failures 
and disappointment. The United States government gave 
to the states of Illinois, Mississippi and Alabama a large body 
of the public lands to aid them in building a railroad from 
the Lakes to the Gulf. The total grant of land amounted 
to about two and a half million acres. This grant gave a 
new impetus to the project of constructing the road, and a 
new company was formed. The state legislature of 185 1 
granted a charter to the company. Under the provisions 
of the charter the state provided that a certain part of the 
income of the road (seven per cent) should go to the state. 
This provision is incorporated in the constitution of 1870 
and is one source of the income of the state. Since 1855 
this railroad company has paid into the treasury of the state 
over twenty-five million dollars. 

In May, 1853, the first section of this road was put into 
operation. This was a stretch of sixty-one miles from 
LaSalle to Bloomington. In July, 1854, one hundred and 
twenty-eight miles of the branch from Chicago to Urbana 
were completed and cars were running. Before the close 
of the year 1854 trains were running from Freeport to 
Galena. This road has continued to grow and to extend 
its lines in every direction until its mileage runs up into 
the thousands. 

When the charter for the Illinois Central was given there 
was not a Hne of chartered road crossing its right of way 
any place from north to south. Yet this was not the first 
road to begin actual operations. The first road in the state 



upon which an engine was used as motive power was the 
Great Northern Cross Railroad, which was chartered to 
extend from Springfield to Quincy. It was completed be- 
tween Jacksonville and Meredosia, a distance of twenty- 
five miles, and in 1842 began operations with a locomotive 
engine. It was one of the state roads. It was a failure. 
After expending over a million dollars upon it, the state 
sold it out at auction for about twenty thousand dollars. 

It would be useless as well as tiresome to try to enumer- 
ate the lines of railroads now operating in the state. Let 
it suffice to say that there are over twenty thousand miles 
of trackage in the state, and this leads all the states in the 
Union with the exception of Pennsylvania and Texas. There 
is scarcely a hamlet in the state through which from two to 
twenty trains a day do not pass, carrying passengers, freight 
and mail. 

The railroad has been the harbinger of a higher type of 
civilization and the distributer of the varied products of 
our great country, bringing the oranges of California and 
Florida to our Illinois tables and carrying our corn, oats 
and potatoes to the markets of New York and to the ship- 
ping points for the Old World. We sometimes think that 
the railroads are tyrannical and oppressive and lawless, yet 
when we compare what they have done for us with what 
evils they inflict upon us, there are none who do not admit 
that we have received a great balance of profit. 



148 



CHAPTER XIX 

STATE EDUCATIONAL^ CHARITABLE AND PENAL INSTITUTIONS 

The enabling act of April, 1818, under which Illinois be- 
came a state, suggested that provision be made for a system 
of free schools and for a state university, and suggested 
that certain lands be donated for the establishment of a fund 
for this purpose (Sec. 6). This was the beginning, or 
rather the foundation, of our present public school system 
with all its accompaniments of state university, normal 
schools and other educational institutions. 

Under the suggestion of this act of Congress, and in 
obedience to the growth of an enlightened sentiment, schools 
have been established from time to time to meet the varied 
demands of the population. 

There are six state educational institutions open to stu- 
dents of the state free of tuition. These are the State 
University at Urbana, opened in 1868, with Dr. John M. 
Gregory as its president; the State Normal School at Nor- 
mal, established in 1857; the Southern Illinois Normal, lo- 
cated at Carbondale in 1874; the Northern Illinois Normal, 
located at De Kalb in 1895; the Eastern Illinois Normal, 
located at Charleston in 1895, and the Western Illinois Nor- 
mal, located at Macomb in 1899. All these institutions are 
related to the district and township schools of the state. 
The ideal system consists of having the state university 
the head and capstone of the entire system, so that from the 

149 



kindergarten room of the most rustic district in the state 
to the university graduation there may be steady and regu- 
lar gradation. It is so provided that the Hne of march 
begun in the country or village or city district school may 
be continued under the flag and to the drum beat of state 
protection until all has been done for the youth of the state 
that can be done to prepare them for an honorable and 
efficient service in the active duties of life. 

Semi-Educational Institutions. 

All children of the state do not come to the schools strong 
in body and mind. Some are born defective in organs of 
sense and some defective in mental powers. Others there 
are who through misfortune or disease become dependent 
because of similar defects. Under the older civilizations 
such as these received little care from the state or from 
any one else. They were the outcasts of society and the 
festering sores in every community life. Only in compara- 
tively recent years has anything been done to really help 
these unfortunates or to give them any recognition as hav- 
ing a right to a place on the earth. In our times schools 
are built for those who can be taught, and asylums for 
those needing constant care and attention. Illinois has not 
been behind any other state in providing for this unfortunate 
class of her citizens. 

There are now seventeen institutions in the state under the 
direction of the state board of charities, in which about 
fourteen thousand people, young and old, are taken care of. 
The secretary of state gives the following list of institutions 
and inmates for 1906: 

Six hospitals for the insane 8,541 

Asylum for Criminal Insane 198 

Institution for the Deaf 435 

Institution for the Blind 208 

Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children 1,482 

Soldiers ' Home 1,709 

Soldiers ' Orphans ' Home 310 

Soldiers ' Widows ' Home 73 



Eye and Ear Infirmary 186 

State Training School for Girls \ 314 

St. Charles Boys ' Home 217 

Industrial Home for the Blind 74 

13,747 

The Penal and Reformatory Institutions. 

As early as 1827 the need of a state institution for the 
incarceration of criminals was recognized. An appropria- 
tion vv^as made for the erection of a building for this pur- 
pose. It was located at Alton and at first contained only 
twenty-five cells. This was the state prison until 1857, when 
an act was passed for the building of a new and larger 
prison at Joliet. This new structure was opened in 1858, 
although it was not then completed, and indeed has been 
in almost constant course of extension ever since. In 1877 
there were over nineteen hundred prisoners at Joliet and 
the legislature provided for a second penitentiary to be lo- 
cated at Chester, near the mouth of the Kaskaskia river, 
and only five miles distant from the old town of Kaskaskia, 
of which we have had so much to do in these stories. This 
prison was opened for the reception of prisoners in 1878, 
when a number were transferred from the overcrowded 
quarters at JoHet. 

In addition to these prisons, there is the state reform 
school located at Pontiac. This school was established in 
1867. This school was intended to give a chance for edu- 
cation and reformation for young men for whom there 
seemed some hope of reforming and winning back to use- 
ful citizenship. The age limit has been raised until now 
boys from ten to twenty-one years of age are sent there. 
There are at this time approximately eleven hundred in- 
mates. 



i=;i 



CHAPTER XX 

SOME OF THE MEN WHO MADE THE STATE 

The greatness of a state may be read in the biographies of 
its citizens. If the average of the citizenship is high, no 
state can be insignificant. If it be low, the whole civic 
structure shows the effect. For this reason we have taken 
great pains and have gone to great expense to establish and 
foster a system of public schools wherein every boy and 
girl may imbibe the fundamental notions of good citizen- 
ship. Every boy and girl in the land should take pride in 
these institutions and should strive to make them somewhat 
better than they are. 

In this chapter we shall give brief notes upon the lives of 
some of the great men of the state. We shall not name a 
fourth part of those who are worthy of mention, nor shall 
we be able to give more than a few facts concerning the 
lives of those whom we do mention. 

George Rogers Clark wrested the Illinois country from 
the British by his heroic capture of the settlements at Kas- 
kaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes. He was born in Albemarle 
county, Virginia, in November, 1752. He became a farmer 
and later took up the work of surveying. He fought in 
some of the Indian skirmishes along the Virginia and Ohio 
borders. The great act of his life was the organizing and 
leading of the force that invaded the Illinois country in 
1778. After the close of the Revolution he did some fight- 

152 



ing against the Indians, but soon retired to Louisville, Ken- 
tucky, where he lived until his death, which occurred Feb- 
ruary 1 8, 1818, the very year that Illinois became a state, 
with Kaskaskia as its capital. 

Arthur St. Clair, first governor of the Northwest ter- 
ritory, of which Illinois formed a part (1789-1802), was 
born in Scotland, coming to this country as a young man 
of about twenty-three. He served under Washington in 
the Revolutionary War. He made his home in Pennsylva- 
nia and represented that state in the Continental Congress. 
In 1802 President Jefferson removed him from the gover- 
norship of the Northwest territory, after which he retired to 
private life. He died at Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in Au- 
gust, 1818, the same year that Illinois became a state. 

Shadrach Bond was the first territorial delegate of Illi- 
nois to the United States Congress (1812-1814). He was 
instrumental in securing a preemption law, the first in the 
United States. He was the first governor of Illinois, serv- 
ing from 18 1 8 to 1822. He died at Kaskaskia in 1832. 

Nathaniel Pope was our territorial delegate in Con- 
gress when Illinois asked for the enabling act which made 
it possible for her to become a state. To Mr. Pope's far- 
sighted statesmanship and skill in presenting his views be- 
fore the congressional committee are we indebted to the 
fact that the site of Chicago is in the state of Illinois and 
not in Wisconsin. Had Mr. Pope been blind to the occa- 
sion, we should have had neither the Chicago river nor the 
shore of Lake Michigan within our boundaries. The orig- 
inal description of our territory cut us off with a line run- 
ning directly west from the southern extremity of Lake 
Michigan. Mr. Pope succeeded in getting the line estab- 
lished at forty-two degrees and thirty minutes of north 
latitude, where it was effectually maintained. When Illi- 
nois was made a state Mr. Pope was made United States 
judge of the district, which then included the whole of the 

153 



state. He held this office until the time of his death in 
January, 1850. 

Edward Coles succeeded Bond as governor of Illinois. 
He was a Virginian, but removed to Illinois in 1819 with 
all his belongings. Among these belongings were twenty- 
six slaves. When he reached Illinois he told the slaves that 
they were all free and gave to each head of a family one 
hundred sixty acres of land. In 1822 he was elected gover- 
nor upon an anti-slavery ticket. He was very active and 
influential in the slavery struggle at that time before the 
people of the state. He gave his entire salary to the cause 
and had the satisfaction of knowing that the cause of slavery 
had been killed in the state. In 1833 he removed from 
Illinois to Philadelphia, where he died in 1868, having had 
the great pleasure of seeing slavery destroyed in the entire 
United States. 

Morris Birkbeck should be mentioned in connection 
with the slavery struggle of Illinois. He was the warm 
friend and aid of Governor Coles in the contest. Birkbeck 
was a well-to-do Englishman who came to this country in 
1817. He came to Illinois and bought a large tract of land 
in what is now Edwards county. He was followed by a 
large colony whom he had persuaded to come to America, 
and they founded the town of New Albion. He was an able 
and active writer and speaker, urging the great possibilities 
of Illinois and the importance of prohibiting slavery within 
the state. Mr. Birkbeck lost his life by accidental drowning 
in 1825. 

NiNiAN Edwards was governor of Illinois from 1826 to 
1830. He had come to Illinois from the state of Kentucky, 
where he had studied law and had succeeded so well that 
he was made chief justice of the court of appeals. In 
1809, when Illinois became an independent territory, Presi- 
dent Madison appointed Edwards as the first territorial 
governor. He served until Illinois became a state. At the 
close of his term as governor in 1830 he retired to his home 

154 



at Belleville, where he died in 1833 from an attack of 
cholera. 

John Reynolds succeeded Edwards as governor of Illi- 
nois in 1830. He was a typical backwoods character, al- 
though said to have received some college training in Ten- 
nessee. He was governor of the state during the Black 
Hawk disturbances and led the state militia in person. He 
wrote a number of books, chiefly historical, the best known 
of which is "My Life and Times." He died in 1865. 

Elijah Parish Lovejoy, the martyr to the cause of abo- 
lition, was a son of Maine. He came to the West in 1827, 
settling in St. Louis. He was educated for the ministry in 
the Presbyterian church, but much of his time was given 
to journalism. In St. Louis he started the Observer, a re- 
ligious weekly newspaper. His editorials upon the subject 
of slavery were displeasing to a large part of the com- 
munity, and, under threats from the pro-slavery party, he 
decided to leave the state. He carried his press and printing 
outfit to Alton in Illinois. Before the press could be set 
up, even as it lay upon the wharf, it was attacked by a 
mob and partially destroyed ; the mob was said to have fol- 
lowed the editor from St. Louis. This was in July, 1836. 
The citizens of Alton deprecated this action and a sub- 
scription was raised to purchase a new press. But there 
was to be no compromise. Press after press was destroyed 
until four were ruined. The life of Lovejoy was made al- 
most unendurable, but still he stood for what he claimed 
as his rights as an American citizen and refused to be co- 
erced by the mobs that hounded him. 

When it became known that a fourth press had been 
ordered and was on its way to the city an indignation meet- 
ing was called by the pro slavery citizens of Alton. At this 
meeting, held November 3, Lovejoy appeared and after 
listening to the speeches made against him delivered the 
following manly and pathetic appeal: 

"Mr. Chairman, it is not true as has been charged upon 

155 



me that I hold in contempt the feelings and sentiments 
of this community in reference to the question which is 
now agitating it. But, sir, while I value the good opin- 
ion of my fellow citizens as highly as anyone, I may 
be permitted to say that I am governed by higher con- 
siderations than either the favor or the fear of man. I 
plant myself down upon my unquestionable right, and 
the question to be decided is whether I shall be pro- 
tected in the enjoyments of these rights — that is the 
question, sir, whether my property shall be protected, 
whether I shall be suffered to go home to my family at 
night without being assailed, threatened with tar and 
feathers and assassination — whether my afflicted wife, 
whose life has been in jeopardy from continual alarm and 
excitement, shall night after night be driven from a sick 
bed into the garret to save herself from brick bats and 
violence of the mob. That, sir, is the question ! I know, 
sir, that you can tar and feather me, hang me, or put me 
in the Mississippi without the least difficulty. But what 
then? Where shall I go? I have concluded, after con- 
sulting with my friends, and earnestly seeking counsel of 
God, to remain in Alton, and here ihsist on protection 
in the exercise of my rights. If the civil authorities 
refuse to protect me, I must look to God, and if I die, 
I am determined to make my grave in Alton." 

When, after several days of intense excitement, the fourth 
press reached Alton on the morning of November 7, 1837, 
a plot was at once entered into by his enemies to destroy 
this press also. It was removed to a warehouse, and here, 
in the night of the seventh of November, as he and some 
of his friends tried to defend his property from violence, 
he was shot down by the mob and killed. It was a tragic 
episode, carried out through the more than two years during 
which Love joy stood for the rights of free speech as well 
as for the rights of man. His death had more to do with 
the growth of abolition sentiment in Illinois than any other 
one thing. He was regarded as a martyr, and as such his 
influence and sentiments were felt far and near. For those 

156 



who want an example of a brave man standing almost alone 
against great odds, simply for the sake of the right as he 
recognized it, when he might have found safety and ease 
elsewhere, our history furnishes few parallels to that of E. 
P. Lovejoy. 

Stephen Arnold Douglas was born in Vermont in 1813 
and came to Illinois in 1833. He studied law at Winchester, 
Illinois, and after service in several official positions be- 
came justice of the Supreme Court of the state in 1842. He 
was elected to Congress in 1842, 1844 ^^^ 1846, serving 
two terms, when he was chosen to the United States Senate 
in 1846. He was reelected twice, the second time in 1849 
after the famous debates with Abraham Lincoln. Douglas 
was looking forward to a probable election to the office of 
president of the United States, but his debates with Lincoln, 
while for the time successful, seemed to effectually separate 
him from his democratic friends in the south. When the 
time came for nominating standard bearers for the demo- 
cratic party Douglas found himself in control of only a 
minority of the forces. The convention broke up into fac- 
tions and instead of presenting a united front there were 
several candidates, against whom was opposed the rail- 
splitter of the Sangamon, and Douglas was badly beaten. 
It was a severe blow to his pride and he probably never 
recovered from it. Although opposed to Lincoln in the 
great battle for the presidency, there were none who stood 
more loyally by the administration of the great president 
than did Stephen A. Douglas. He was a patriot as well as 
a party man, and not for a moment did he hesitate when 
the time came to give his voice and influence for the union 
cause. He died in Chicago, June 3, 1861, before the war 
had scarcely begun. 

In Woodland park, Chicago, stands the Douglas monu- 
ment, by Leonard Volk, consisting of a granite base, sur- 
mounted by a bronze figure of the distinguished senator, 
while at the four corners of the sarcophagus-like base are 

157 



bronze allegorical figures representing Illinois, History, Jus- 
tice and Eloquence. The shaft is something over loo feet 
in height and was erected by the state at a cost of $100,000. 
Abraham Lincoln, the ''First American" for whom Na- 
ture made a new mold, using clay out of the great West, 
was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, February 12, 1809. 
In 1830, with his father he came to Illinois, settling in 
Macon county. While a boy and young man he spent his 
life as did most of the youth in this frontier country. Abe 
was more industrious and more far-seeing than most of his 
associates, and blessed with rugged health and great phys- 
ical endurance, was prepared to follow the life of farm- 
hand, flatboatman, rail-splitter, store-keeper or any other 
occupation that might offer. He had very little opportunity 
for sdiooling or self-education. What little he had was 
used wisely and persistently. He would walk miles to bor- 
row books and would spend many of his sleeping hours in 
reading them. No one can read his speeches without being 
amazed not only with the extent of reading they exhibit, 
but the thoroughness with which he had digested the themes 
of the authors. For one who had so few opportunities to 
get books this is remarkable. Lincoln was a soldier in the 
Black Hawk War, as were Jefferson Davis, Major Ander- 
son, of Fort Sumter fame, and many others who afterwards 
became noted leaders. Lincoln studied law in his odd hours 
and was admitted to the bar in 1836. He was a member 
of the state legislature for several years. He served upon 
the delegation that was charged with securing the location 
of the capitol building at Springfield. He was a member 
of Congress from 1847 to 1849. In 1855 ^e was a candidate 
for election to the United States senate, but was beaten. 
In 1847 he was one of the leading spirits in the formation 
of the republican party in the state of Illinois, the conven- 
tion meeting at Bloomington. In 1858 he was nominated 
by his party for the United States senate. Out of this nom- 
ination grew the notable debates between Lincoln and Doug- 

158 



las. Lincoln was beaten for the senate, but his reputation 
was made, and in i860 he was nominated for the office of 
president of the United States and elected. The rest of 
his public life is written in the history of the Civil War, 
which began with the beginning of his administration and 
was about at its close when he was assassinated by John 
Wilkes Booth, a half-crazed actor, on the fifteenth of April, 
1865. Lincoln was shot in Ford's theater on the evening 
of April 15, died the following morning, and, after a na- 
tional funeral the like of which had never been known in 
this country, his body was laid to rest in the city where 
he had made his home, the capital of his state. 

At the corner of Lake and Market streets, on the building 
occupied by Reid, Murdoch & Co., a memorial tablet marks 
the site of the temporary wigwam in which Abraham Lin- 
coln was nominated for the presidency. May 18, i860. The 
tablet was placed by the Chicago Centennial association at 
the celebration of Chicago's hundredth anniversary, Sept. 
26 to Oct. 2, 1903. 

A month after the assassination of Lincoln an association 
was formed for the purpose of erecting a national monu- 
ment. There was a hearty response to the appeal and 
ground was broken for the monument in September, 1869, 
and it was dedicated in October, 1874. It stands upon an 
eminence in Oak Ridge cemetery, Springfield. The base is 
seventy-two and a half feet from east to west and one hun- 
dred nineteen and a half feet from north to south, rising 
by gradations to a height of twenty-eight feet and four 
inches from the ground. Surmounting this is an obelisk 
rising ninety-two feet higher. The total height from the 
ground to the top of the obelisk is one hundred twenty 
feet and four inches. In 1899, owing to signs of weak- 
ness in the monument, the legislature appropriated $100,000 
for repairs and the entire structure was gone over and 
strengthened. 

At the , suggestion of Robert T. Lincoln, the Board of 

159 



Control had a cemented vault made beneath the floor of 
the catacomb, and in this vault the body of President Lin- 
coln was placed Sept. 2.6, 1901. 

Joel Matteson was governor of Illinois from 1853 to 
1857. He was born in New York in 1808. After some ex- 
perience in other parts of the country he came to Illinois in 
1834, making his home at Joliet, in Will county, where he 
engaged in manufacturing. Under the administration of 
Governor Matteson, and largely through his influence, the 
school law of 1855, the basis of our present law, was passed 
by the legislature. After the close of his term as governor, 
he removed to Chicago where he made his home until the 
time of his death, January 31, 1873. 

NiNiAN W. Edwards^ a son of Governor Edwards, de- 
serves a conspicuous place in the history of the state. When, 
upon the recommendation of Governor Matteson, the legis- 
lature provided for the enactment of a school law and for 
the establishing of the oflice of superintendent of schools, 
Ninian Edwards was the man selected for that office. So 
it fell into his hands, by virtue of that appointment and 
the act of the legislature, to draft a school law for the 
state. No one doubts the honesty of purpose and great de- 
votion with which he set to work upon that task, and the 
law produced and enacted stands today as the best monu- 
ment to the ability and broad views of education possessed 
by its compiler. From the appointment of Ninian Edwards 
to the office of state superintendent may be said to date 
the beginning of free schools in the state of Illinois. Ninian 
Edwards was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1809, and 
died at his home in Springfield, September 2, 1889. 

Richard Yates was the governor of Illinois in the Civil 
War times. It was a trying position, as a large element of 
the population, especially in the southern part of the state, 
was bitterly opposed to the war. The legislature was badly 
divided, and only by the most positive spirit of loyalty to 
Union principles was a serious division of sentiment pre- 

160 



vented. Yates was known as one of the great war govern- 
ors. He deserved all praise for the courage and straight- 
forward manner in which he dealt with the questions of 
the war. Under the impetus and enthusiasm created by 
this fearless governor, Illinois came forward with nearly 
two hundred fifty thousand boys in blue, and their part in 
the war was one of honor to themselves and of glory to the 
state. 

Yates was born in Warsaw, Kentucky, in 1815. In 183 1 
the family removed to Illinois, making their home at Spring- 
field. He studied law, served in the state legislature and 
in Congress. He aided in the organization of the repub- 
lican party in Illinois, and at the same time Lincoln was 
elected president, Yates was elected to the governorship of 
Illinois. After his term of office had expired he was elected 
to the United States senate, where he served from 1865 to 
1871. He died in St. Louis, suddenly, while passing through 
the city on a business trip under the appointment of Presi- 
dent Grant, November 27, 1873. 

U. S. Grant came to the state in middle life. He was 
thirty-eight years of age when he made his home in Ga- 
lena. He was born at Point Pleasant, Clermont county, 
Ohio, April 2^, 1S22. He graduated from the West Point 
Academy and entered the army. He served in the Mexican 
War and afterward retiring from the army he settled at 
St. Louis, removing from there to Illinois in i860. At the 
breaking out of the Civil War he at once oflFered his serv- 
ices to the government and was soon placed in charge of 
the Union forces at Cairo. From the day in February, 
1862, when he led his troops against the enemy's camp at 
Belmont, until his death in the cottage at Mount McGregor, 
in July, 1885, his story is in large part the story of the 
Civil War and the reconstruction of the southern states 
after the close of the war. 



161 



space forbids that we should thus go on through' the 
whole list of those worthy a place upon the honorable es- 
cutcheon of the state, else would we tell of Logan, one of 
our great volunteer leaders ; of Oglesby and Palmer, strong 
in statecraft and faithful to civic duty ; of Hovey and Bate- 
man and Edwards and Hewitt and a great multitude of 
others who have made our educational sky glitter with stars 
as does the blue canopy at night. We should name Riggs 
and Walker and Cartwright and Peck and Finley, and thou- 
sands of their co-laborers and successors, who made reli- 
gious life a necessity and saved the pioneer settlements from 
paganism. We would go even further back than this and 
tell of the heroic souls who planted their cabins over against 
the hunting grounds of the savage, and, taking their lives 
in their hands, by sacrifice and self-denial, by sufferings oft 
beyond description, and with death often by violence, some- 
times at the stake and sometimes with lingering illness far 
from medical aid or skillful nursing, made this land possible 
for our twentieth century civilization and comforts. It was 
such as these that laid the foundations of the prosperity and 
greatness of our state, and of these we are in no sense 
worthy unless we shall add to the inheritance something 
from our own lives and industry that shall redound to the 
honor of our state. 



162 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE MAKING OF CHICAGO 

Beside the lake, covering and spreading all about the spot 
where Marquette spent the long wearisome winter of 1674-5, 
has grown up a great city giving homes to two millions of 
people. Instead of the frail canoes paddling along the 
shore or pushing up the rivers we have great ships made 
of steel and carrying thousands of tons of freight coming 
and going every day in the year. The war-whoop of the 
Indian no longer echoes across the sands of the lake shore 
and his wigwam no longer adds picturesqueness and sol- 
emnity to the scene. Instead of these we have the shriek- 
ing of thousands of steam whistles, the rumbling of unnum- 
bered wheels along steel rails or over granite stones and the 
atmosphere is laden with belching volumes of black and 
heavy smoke from countless factory and office chimneys. 

In digging for foundations in the city of London work- 
men have turned up implements and household utensils 
used by Englishmen five hundred years ago ; still below 
that they have found the armour and spears and coins of 
the Norman French who came into the country with William 
the Conqueror nearly nine hundred years ago; still below 
that they have discovered the stone foundations and shields 
and bridle-bits and coins left by the Romans who lived in 
the city eighteen hundred years ago ; and yet beneath that 
have been found the simple tools and household articles 

163 



of the ancient Britons who founded die city of London 
before Julius Caesar was born, perhaps, before the city of 
Rome was built upon her seven hills. 

The same might be said of many other cities where mul- 
titudes of men have gathered like hives of bees. We walk 
the streets of Boston and see the buildings in which Otis 
and Hancock and Adams thrilled their audiences by fiery 
denunciations of English oppressions; we see the very 
church steeple which flashed the light that started Paul 
Revere on his midnight ride. The men who builded and 
lived and loved and died in these structures and walked 
these streets in sunlight by day and in darkness by night 
have become as historic and as distant as are the pyramids 
of Egypt. With every great city we associate the notion of 
age, of time, of past generations. 

But here beside the lake has grown up a phenomenon 
in the history of cities. There are men among us who 
can remember when the waste of sands from Beverley 
hills to North Shore drive was broken by not more than 
a score of rude buildings. There are many among us who 
can remember when the total population could be written 
down in three figures, — and now it takes seven. For rap- 
idity of growth, for solidity of structure, for its imperial 
command of trade and commerce it stands alone, unique 
and unchallenged among all the cities of the world. It is 
fitting that it should be so. It is the great city of the Illinois 
country and Illinois is our state. 

The biography of a city should be as interesting and 
instructive as the biography of a man and it will do us 
good to spend a little time trying to image, as, best we can, 
the gradual development of this, our Chicago. 

There are many theories as to the origin of the name 
Chicago. The one that has been generally accepted is that 
it is an Indian word, signifying a bad smell. As applied to 
this region, it is supposed to have referred to the wild 
onions which grew rankly all over the marshy plain. By 

164 



other authorities the name is said to have been derived from 
an Indian word meaning strong or mighty. The Indians 
are said to have applied the name to the Mississippi, to 
thunder and to the voice of the Great Manitou. Father Hen- 
nepin used the name to designate the IlHnois river. LaSalle 
gave the name to the Desplaines and also to the Calumet. 

He speaks of the "Chicagou Portage." The name came 
at last to designate both the plain and the river long before 
Fort Dearborn came to be built. 

After the successful campaign of General Anthony Wayne 
against the Indians of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois 
in 1794-5, the different tribes were forced to cede parts 
of their lands to the United States. The Pottawatomies, 
who occupied the country bordering upon the lake in 
Illinois, gave up "one piece of land, six miles square, at 
the mouth of the Chicago river emptying into Lake Mich- 
igan, where a fort formerly stood." This was practically 
the site of the present Chicago, and thus it was that 
the real estate trade for the ground upon which we have 
builded our city was conducted, and thus the title to our 
city lots was obtained from the Indians. 

In 1803, the secretary of war ordered a company of 
soldiers to move from Detroit to the mouth of the Chicago 
river and there establish and occupy a fort. The following 
year Fort Dearborn was completed and was occupied by 
two companies of soldiers. 

The story of the fort is briefly told upon a bronze tablet 
built into the walls of the Hoyt building at the foot of 
Michigan avenue in the following inscription: 

'This building occupies the site of old Fort Dearborn, 
which extended a little across Michigan avenue, and some- 
what into the river as it now is. The fort was built in 
1803-4, forming our outmost defense. By order of Gen. 
Hull, it was evacuated Aug. 15, 18 12, after its stores and 
provisions had been distributed among the Indians. Very 
soon after, the Indians attacked and massacred about fifty 

165 



of the troops and a number of citizens, including women 
and children, and next day burned the fort. In 1816 it was 
rebuilt, but after the Black Hawk war it went into gradual 
disuse, and in May, 1837, was abandoned by the army, 
but was occupied by various government offices till 1857, 
when it was taken down excepting a single building which 
stood upon this site till the great fire of Oct. 9, 1871. At 
the suggestion of the Chicago Historical society this tablet 
was erected by W. M. Hoyt, November, 1880." 

Around this fort gathered a few fur traders with their 
families. John Kinzie, the first permanent white settler, 
came in 1804. With him came his wife, his nephew, Robert 
Forsythe, his nine year old stepdaughter, Margaret Mc- 
Killup, and the little John Kinzie, who was conveyed in a 
birch-bark cradle swung from the shoulders of ''Black Jim," 
a negro slave. In 1805 came Charles Jouett; then there 
were the families of Charles Lee, Mr. Burns and Mr. 
White. This was the population of Chicago in 1806. In 
1804, Ellen Marion Kinzie was born, — the first white child 
born in Chicago. 

The stories of fun and frolic, of joy and laughter, of 
births and deaths which come down to us from those days 
of pioneer life, in the midst of swamps and sands beside 
our beautiful lake, seem like fairy lore of far off lands. 
Yet they were the lives and loves of those who might have 
talked with our fathers, giving them from experience the 
tales of Indian life and bloody massacres. 

The fort was rebuilt in 181 6, as told on our tablet, and 
settlers again gathered about it, gradually increasing in 
number. 

James Galloway arrived overland from Ohio in 1824. 
The story of his journey was a nine days' wonder. At 
Sandusky he had put a gun, tomahawk, steel traps, blan- 
kets, bacon and corn meal in a wagon. He shot game to 
eat on the way, and sold the peltries in Fort Wayne. 
From there he crossed Indiana and Michigan to St. Joseph, 

166 



and followed the Indian trail around the end of the lake. 
He toiled through the sand dunes where Michigan City now 
stands, and got stuck in the mud of the Calumet marsh. He 
went on nearly loo miles west of Chicago to the grand 
rapids of the Illinois river and, on the site of Marseilles, 
staked out a claim in the military road strip. 

The next year he went back to Ohio for his family, 
bringing them around by the Great Lakes. 

It was recognized that Chicago was the natural transfer 
point between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi valley. 
President Monroe was deluged with petitions, even so early 
as that, asking for the opening of roads and canals to con- 
nect these great waterways. 

The southern part of the state was settled more rapidly 
than the northern part, as has been shown by the maps of 
a preceding chapter. It was not until 1823 that this region 
came under the civil rule of the state as a district "attached 
to Fulton County." The first election was held that year in 
the Indian agency house. That same year the entire prop- 
erty of Chicago was assessed at $2.50. 

In 1830, Chicago really began to take on signs of life 
and growth. The Illinois and Michigan canal had been 
chartered and large tracts of land had been donated by 
the government to aid in the construction. Chicago was 
described at that time as "a village of fifteen houses and a 
fort, located on Section 9, Township 39, Range 14." This 
was the terminus of the canal, and town lots were laid 
off and offered for sale. Then business began. Lots sold 
as high as $75 each. 

In 183 1 Cook County was organized. In 1832 the taxes 
of Chicago amounted to $150 and the village trustees erected 
the first public building, a cattle yard for stray cattle, at 
a cost of twelve dollars. 

The Black Hawk war and the cholera came like a frost 
upon the budding prosperity of the young city. But it 
soon recovered and in 1833 the population had grown to 

167 



fifty families. In 1905 four of the pioneer settlers who 
came to Chicago in 1833-4 met at a reunion. How strange 
it must have seemed to them to look out upon the miles and 
miles of brick and stone buildings and reflect that when 
they came here to settle there were only fifty houses ! Before 
the close of 1834 the population had grown to about 2,000. 
The real estate boom was making the town. 

The chief part of the lots auctioned off that year be- 
longed to the school section, Number 16, which is in the 
heart of Chicago. Most of these lots sold for about $6.72 
per acre, bringing a total of about $38,000 to the school 
fund. Fortunately for us who now live in Chicago most 
of the lots were sold on time and many of them were not 
paid for and came back to the school board. 

There was a regular craze for lots. Prices rose so 
rapidly that no one could keep track of them. The lot 
upon which the Northwestern University building is now 
located, at Lake and Dearborn streets, was sold in 1829 by 
raffle at twenty-five cents a chance. In 1830 it was traded 
for an Indian pony. In 1831 it was rated as worth $1.25. 
In 1832 it was traded for a pair of boots. In 1833 it was 
traded for a barrel of whisky, worth $25. In 1834 it was 
traded for a yoke of steers and a barrel of flour. In 1835 
it was sold for $500 cash. In 1836 it was sold for $5,000 
and the purchaser refused to part with it. 

In 1836 Harriet Martineau visited Chicago and wrote as 
follows of it : 

'T never saw a busier place. It was but a squalid town 
of insignificant houses that sat jauntily in the muck of the 
prairie, but the streets were as crowded as London. Land 
sales were held on every block, and everybody hurried from 
one to another, fearing to miss the bargains. A negro 
dressed in scarlet, bearing a red flag and riding a white 
horse with scarlet housings, dashed through the town and 
announced the times of sale. Crowds flocked around him. 
The gentlemen of our party were hailed from the shop doors 

168 



with offers of farms, land lots, water lots, town sites, timber 
claims. The immediate occasion of excitement was the 
sale of $2,000,000 worth of lots along the projected canal. 
Wild land along that undug ditch was selling for more 
than the finest land in the valley of the Mohawk, where an 
inestimable amount of traffic was then being carried on. 
These speculators in Chicago were not sharpers or gam- 
blers, but hard-headed business men. It was remarkable 
to find such an assemblage of cultivated, refined and wealthy 
people living in the rudest houses on the edge of that wild 
prairie." 

In March, 1837, the city was given a charter and W. B. 
Ogden was elected to be the first mayor. The population 
that year was given as 4,149. 

The Indians had departed. They had signed away their 
title to the lands and agreed to go to the west of the Mis- 
sissippi. In 1835 they held their last war dance and built 
their last council-fire in Chicago. Judge J. D. Caton, who 
at the time was a young lawyer in the village, wrote the fol- 
lowing account of this last scene : 

"It was in August, 1835, that the Pottawatomies danced 
their last war dance in Chicago. Certain risks were taken 
in permitting them to dance, but the officer in command at 
the fort feared also to refuse them. The garrison was 
under arms on the parade ground at Michigan avenue and 
the river, ostensibly to do the braves honor, but in reality 
to be in readiness for trouble should sorrow, excitement and 
bad whisky prove too much for the Indian's self-control. 

"The braves assembled at the bark council house after 
hours in their tepees spent in making their savage toilets. 
All were naked except for a strip of cloth about the loins, 
but their bodies were covered with elaborate designs in 
brilliant paints. Foreheads, cheeks and noses were lined 
with curved stripes of vermilion edged with black points, 
that gave a diabolical expression to their faces. The long, 
coarse, black hair was gathered into scalp-locks and dec- 

169 



orated with colored hawk and eagle feathers extending down 
the back to the ground. The braves were armed with 
war clubs and tomahawks and were led by musicians who 
kept up a hideous, rythmic din by beating on hollow vessels 
with sticks. 

"They advanced, not by marching, but by a continuous 
dance. Proceeding westward along the north bank of the 
river they crossed the eighty-foot slough at Market street 
and the North Branch, on swaying foot bridges, thence 
along the west bank to Lake street, where a log bridge 
spanned the South Branch. They were now just below 
the windows of the Sauganash House, which stood on the 
southeast corner of Lake and Market, where the Republican 
Wigwam was afterwards built and where Lincoln was nom- 
inated for the presidency twenty-five years later. 

"The dance, which never stopped, consisted of jerks, 
leaps and unnatural distortions, all performed with light- 
ning-like swiftness, and wildcat grace and ferocity. There 
were 800 braves in that raging river of dusky, painted 
fiends which poured over the bridge and flowed down Lake 
street to the fort. They were frothing at the mouth ; many 
had been wounded by flying tomahawks and war clubs, and 
blood mingled with dust, paint and sweat, but the victims 
were unconscious of their hurts. Ladies at the windows 
fainted as the savages closed around the hotel to perform 
extra exploits. What if this sham rage should turn into 
a real attack! How easy it would have been for these 
Indians to have committed another massacre in the helpless 
town !" 

But no serious results followed. The next day the sav- 
ages sadly turned away from the Chicago plain and began 
their march to their new home in the far away Missouri 
country. 

The time of city building had now come and the newly 
elected officers in 1837 began taking an inventory of affairs 

170 



and proposing plans for the improvement of local condi- 
tions. 

To provide for the troops of children that were already 
filling the streets, a school system was established. The 
state legislature granted power to the city council to estab- 
lish and maintain common schools and this, beginning in 
1837, has grown until the present city council makes pro- 
vision for about 280,000 children in its buildings and passes 
appropriations for the payment of nearly 6,000 teachers. 

The Civil War affected Chicago as it affected all the cities 
of the north. From her homes went out thousands of 
brave men, many of whom never came back. The mothers 
and wives and sisters of the city formed relief bands and 
sewing societies, gathering supplies of medicines, bandages, 
and clothing for our boys at the front. All this is told in 
the history books and we do not need to repeat it here. 
When the war was over, when our great commander. Gen- 
eral Grant, had urged, "Let us have peace," and the daunt- 
less leader of the gray. General Robert E. Lee, had dis- 
banded and sent to their homes the shattered ranks of the 
Confederacy, men everywhere rejoiced and Chicago began 
a new era of growth and development. 

In the midst of the growing prosperity of the city there 
came the greatest calamity that can befall any populous 
community. In a few hours the streets which had been 
filled with trade and traffic were strewn with ruins and 
debris; the miles of stores and office buildings which were 
the pride of all the citizens were smoldering heaps of 
ashes. A great fire, borne upon the wings of the wind, 
swept the city from near Twelfth and Clinton streets to 
Fullerton avenue, taking everything between the rivers and 
the lake. It began upon the night of October 8, 1871, it is 
said, by the overturning of a lamp in a cow-shed. It was 
Sunday evening and the city was unprepared for the 
emergency. All night long, all day long, and yet another 
night and a day the red flames shot up so high they were 

171 



visible to a distance of one hundred fifty miles and the 
stifling smoke drove the panic stricken and homeless people 
from one refuge to another. 

The fire department was assisted by the fire departments 
from other cities, some of them coming from as far away 
as the city of Cleveland, Ohio, but all could do nothing 
against the destroying demon of flame. It burned itself out, 
then as if satisfied, died away and disappeared. Behind was 
left two thousand acres of desolate, smoking ruins and more 
than seventy thousand people whose homes had gone up 
in the fire and smoke. 

It was a terrific blow coming with the suddenness of 
assassination and the city by the lake staggered under the 
blow. Nearly $200,000,000 of her gathered wealth, about 
a third of all the estimated wealth of the city, had disap- 
peared, and her business had been wiped out. But, rousing 
from the catastrophe, she put forth new strength, as one 
rousing from a sleep, and with the aid of all the world that 
laid its contributions at her door in a noble spirit of philan- 
thropy, upon a scale never known before, she began build- 
ing larger and better than ever before. 

No one who walks today from the Rock Island depot to 
Lincoln Park, through the region of large buildings tower- 
ing to the height of fourteen, twenty and even thirty stories, 
would dream that here for the distance of four miles the 
fire had left not a building standing and foundations had 
to be laid anew for every structure. It is a magnificent 
monument to the endurance and persistence of man and a 
fine illustration of that Chicago spirit which says "I will." 

One of the first and most serious problems that confronted 
the new city council in 1837 was the providing for a whole- 
some and sufficient supply of fresh water. Perhaps a short 
sketch of the inauguration and development of the water 
system of the city may be interesting in this place. 

THE CHICAGO WATER SYSTEM was begun in 1834, 
when the village board paid $95.50 for digging a well for the 

172 



use of the public. This well was sunk at what is now the 
corner of Cass and Michigan streets. The supply from the 
well was not as good as from the lake. Water was hauled by 
wagon or barrel and sold from house to house or each one 
provided his own means of transportation. In 1836 the 
state legislature incorporated the Chicago Hydraulic Com- 
pany for the purpose of supplying to the people a whole- 
some and plentiful supply of fresh water. 

This Hydraulic company began furnishing water to the 
city in 1840. It built a tank 25 by 25 by 8 feet at the corner 
of Lake and Michigan streets. The top of the tank was 
about eighty feet above the level of the lake. A twenty-five 
horse power engine was installed and the tank was connected 
with the lake by a pipe which extended one hundred fifty feet 
from the shore. About two miles of wooden pipe was laid 
for distribution. This did not supply more than about one- 
fifth of the people. Most of the town was still served by 
the water wagon. The population was increasing very 
rapidly and the need of an adequate supply began to be 
severely felt. In 1852 the city took over the franchises of 
the Hydraulic company and laid plans for a better system 
of water works, but it was not until 1854 that the new 
system was put into operation. 

By the plan of 1854 a pumping station was erected at 
Chicago avenue (the present pumping location), and a pipe 
thirty inches in diameter was extended a short distance 
from the shore. Three stand-pipes were erected, one at 
LaSalle and Adams streets, one at Morgan and Monroe 
and the third at Chicago avenue and Sedgwick street. 
These stand-pipes were connected with the pumping sta- 
tion by iron pipes. The first iron pipes for distribution 
purposes were laid in 1852; the population at that time 
was about 30,000. These three reservoirs were in use, in 
whole or in part, until 1876. In 1858 two new reservoirs 
were built, holding about half a million gallons each. 

At the close of 1862 there were one hundred five miles 

173 



of iron water pipe in use. The population was then about 
115,000. 

In 1863 the legislature gave permission, and Congress 
approved it, to build tunnels, or to use such other means 
as might be necessary, for obtaining water from the lake. 
Under this permission the first tunnel under the lake was 
begun, in March, 1864, and completed in just three years. 
A crib was erected two miles from the shore northeast 
from the Chicago avenue pumping station and a tunnel, 
five feet in diameter, connected these two points. The iron 
distributing pipe had grown by this time to one hundred 
seventy-five miles. 

In 1872 a second tunnel was run from the two-mile crib, 
forty-six feet south of the first tunnel and parallel with it, 
to the shore connecting with the Chicago avenue station 
and thence extending to Twenty-second street and Ashland 
avenue. The distance is 31,419 feet and the tunnel is seven 
feet in diameter. This tunnel was completed in 1874, mak- 
ing a connection in all with four hundred sixteen miles of 
iron service pipe for a population of over 300,000 people. 

From 1876 to 1880 brick tunnels were built under the 
river at various points and thirty-six inch mains run through 
them to connect the various stations. In 1886-7 a third 
tunnel was built extending from the Chicago avenue station 
to the breakwater where a crib was erected for the pur- 
pose of relieving the two-mile crib when endangered by ice. 
This tunnel has not been used much because it is too near 
the shore. 

A fourth tunnel and a third crib were built in 1888-92. 
It reaches out four miles into the lake to the east of Twelfth 
street; it is from six to eight feet in diameter and extends 
under the lake to the distance of 34,339 feet, connecting 
with the Park Row pumping station. From this station two 
land tunnels extend, one, seven feet in diameter, running 
to Peck court, thence northwest to Desplaines street, thence 
to Harrison street pumping station. A second runs to the 

174 



Fourteenth street pumping station. Various other short 
connecting tunnels were built. 

In 1889, by annexation, Hyde Park and the town of 
Lake became a part of the city with their water system. 
This consisted of a tunnel reaching about a mile out into the 
lake to a crib, and a pumping station at Sixty-eighth street. 
The city extended this lake tunnel to the distance of two 
miles and erected a new crib and extended the land tunnels 
so that most of the city south of Thirty-ninth street is sup- 
plied through this Sixty-eighth street crib. At the same 
time Lake View became a part of the city with an unfinished 
tunnel on hand. This tunnel was completed by the city 
extending to a distance of two miles from the shoie and a 
new crib was erected. 

Other annexations brought the towns of Washington 
Heights, Norwood Park, Rogers Park and Cicero into the 
city. The last two are still supplied by a system operated 
by a private corporation. Washington Heights is supplied 
by a pumping station which draws its water from an 
artesian well, 1,350 feet deep. Norwood Park is also sup- 
plied from a well 1,600 feet deep. 

In 1896-99 a still greater supply of water was demanded 
and a new tunnel and crib were built. This is known as 
the Carter Harrison crib. The lake tunnel reaching this 
crib starts at Oak street shaft and extends 14,033 feet from 
the shore. It is ten feet in diameter. From the shaft one 
land tunnel, ten feet in diameter, extends to Green and 
Grand avenue, 8,666 feet. From here one branch runs to 
Central Park avenue and Fillmore street, a distance of 
19,856 feet; a second branch runs to Springfield avenue and 
Bloomingdale road, 22,184 feet. The last sections of these 
tunnels were completed in 1900. 

Besides these various tunnels connecting with the lake 
cribs there are seventeen tunnels under the rivers. In 1904 
there were nineteen hundred seventy-eight miles of water 
mains and thirty-seven miles of lake tunnels, with five cribs 

175 



and ten pumping stations. The entire system is estimated 
to have cost the city about $36,003,000. 

The end is not yet. As we write these pages scores of 
men are at work, night and day, extending the tunnels both 
under land and water trying to solve more completely the 
same problem that faced our fathers in 1837. 

THE CHICAGO SEWERAGE SYSTEM. When a tol- 
erable supply of water was furnished only one side of the 
problem had been attacked. Another and in some ways a 
much more serious question concerned the disposal of the 
waste matter, — the slops and garbage, — the sewage of the 
city. We shall be interested then in the manner in which this 
problem was attacked and has been pushed forward toward 
its final solution. 

No systematic efforts were made to care for the sewage 
of Chicago until 1855. We remember that the city took 
over the franchises of the Hydraulic Water company in 1852 
and began furnishing water under the new city system in 
1854. Up to this time the sewage had been disposed of 
in the primitive fashion of dumping it out into the street, 
into gutters or the rivers, or into cesspools or wherever 
and by whatever means it might be put out of the way. 
Some effort had been made in the business parts of the 
city to place wooden box-pipes under ground for the pur- 
pose of conveying the sewage to the river, but it was a very 
inadequate system and very limited in its application. But 
with the coming of a large population and with the advent 
of a modernized water system there became apparent a 
need for a better system of taking care of the waste. 
The epidemics of cholera and fevers that swept the city of 
a large part of its population at various times as well as 
the frightfully high death rate made some plan imperative. 

In February, 1855, the legislature, at the request of citi- 
zens of Chicago, created a board of sewerage commissioners. 
This board went to work at once, but much time was needed 
for investigation and surveying and study. Mr. Chesb rough, 

176 



an engineer from Boston, was employed as the official en- 
gineer. In our later developments of the sewerage and 
drainage system we are carrying out the suggestions and 
recommendations of Mr. Chesbrough. He was counted the 
leading sanitary engineer in the United States. It has been 
worth millions of dollars to Chicago to have had such a 
man at the head of her sewer system in its beginnings. The 
plan adopted was to fill the streets in many parts of the 
city, raising the houses to street grade, in order that sewers 
might be built and covered. In many places even then the 
sewers were exposed above ground for many blocks. 
Sewers, about five feet in diameter, were to be built of 
brick, in most cases on every other street, leading from the 
main streets to the river. Into these large sewers smaller 
ones, made of tile, were to lead from side streets, houses, 
etc. It was the plan that all the sewers should empty into the 
rivers. Until the extensive annexations began there were 
not more than about four sewers in all the city that emptied 
into the lake. 

It was not long until it began to be apparent to Mr. 
Chesbrough that trouble was in store for the city because 
of the extreme pollution of the rivers. From the very first 
he had recommended as the only adequate and lasting 
system of sewerage the cutting of a canal through the 
divide to the Desplaines river. But the expense involved 
made this an impossible proposition. A plan for cleansing 
the river was then recommended. It was proposed to erect 
pumping stations and build conduits from the lake to the 
branches of the rivers and by pumping great quantities of 
fresh water into the rivers to force the sewage out into 
the lake, thus cleansing the rivers. This plan was put into 
operation on the North Side and was kept up until very 
recent years. It helped to cleanse the river, but, of course, 
it carried the pollution out into the lake. In 1848 the Illinois 
and Michigan canal was completed. It was only a shallow 
ditch, four feet of water, but it reached from Bridgeport 

177 



to the Illinois river at LaSalle. The builders of the canal 
had great difficulty to get sufficient water to fill the canal 
and keep it full. To assist in this pumps were erected at 
Bridgeport and water was pumped out of the river for the 
canal. This was a decided advantage for the city, but 
it was only a partial relief, as the amount pumped was at 
no time sufficient to keep the river clear and many months 
of the year the pumps were not working at all because 
the canal was not in use. In 1862 the effect of the sewage 
upon the drinking water began to be generally noticed 
and it became a matter of great importance to find a remedy. 
You remember that it was at this time that the first tunnel 
was considered. The first tunnel under the lake was com- 
pleted in 1867, the second in 1872'. The city also joined 
with the state in an effort to deepen the Illinois and Mich- 
igan canal, hoping that some relief might be found in that 
quarter. The canal was dug deeper at an expense of nearly 
$3,000,000 and larger pumps were installed at Bridgeport 
and they were kept pumping all the time for the rielief of 
the river. In spite of it all the river was rank and smelled 
to heaven. 

In this connection it is worth noting that from a very 
early day a great effort was made to get the national gov- 
ernment to build a ship canal from the lake to the Mississippi 
deep enough to permit war vessels to come from the gulf 
to the lake. Chicago was intensely interested in this scheme. 
But those of us who have read the history of the political 
parties and factions of the times know how bitterly the sub- 
ject of internal improvements was fought. Upon this ground 
over and over again the bill for a ship canal was beaten. 
As early as 1847 a great national convention was held in 
Chicago to consider the matter of national aid to canals. 
Chicago at that time had a population of only about 16,000 
people, yet she accommodated a convention of 20,000 and 
made holiday for them with processions and skyrockets 
and receptions. It was a great gathering. Nineteen states 

,178 



had delegates at this convention. Among these delegates 
were such men as Horace Greely, Thurlow Weed, Thomas 
Corwin, Schuyler Colfax and Abraham Lincoln. But it was 
of no avail ; Congress turned a deaf ear to all such internal 
improvements. 

From 1855 until 1862 about 55 miles of sewers had 
been laid. From that time the growth has been steady and 
large, providing now more than 1,700 miles, of which 
more than six hundred miles are of brick. Owing to the 
lay of the land it is impossible to construct sewers for any 
great distance and have the water carried forward by 
gravity. The necessary fall soon sinks the sewer too deep 
in the ground for operation. To overcome this pumping 
stations have been erected at convenient places and the 
sewage has been lifted from one level to another and 
then carried forward again. 

The drainage channel connecting Lake Michigan with the 
Desplaines river was made for the immediate purpose of 
providing for the disposal of the Chicago sewage. It is 
hoped that at some future time it may be one section of 
a great ship waterway from the lakes to the gulf. This 
channel was authorized by the legislature in 1889 and the 
Sanitary District was organized with a total area of one 
hundred eighty-five square miles. The board of nine trus- 
tees are elected by the people of the district and are given 
power to levy taxes upon the district to meet the expenses 
of construction. 

Work was commenced in September, 1892, and the water 
from the lake was turned into the canal on the second of 
January, 1900, when, for the first time since the closing 
of the great ice age, the waters of the lakes found their 
way to the gulf. The cost of the canal, which is one of 
the most notable engineering feats in the history of this 
continent, has been about $50,000,000. It cuts through the 
divide of solid limestone and drift that formed the ancient 
barrier between the lake and the Desplaines valley. Across 

179 



this divide Marquette and LaSalle and the wandering fur 
traders carried their canoes, writing down in their diaries 
that a canal should be cut connecting the Chicago and the 
Desplaines river. The ideals that one man sees dimly in 
visions others coming after must make real as ever, thus, 
* * * * "Through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of 
the suns." 

Chicago is working away as rapidly as possible to com- 
plete a system of intercepting sewers which shall eventually 
carry all the sewage of this great city out toward the 
Mississippi, being purified and made harmless by the mil- 
lions of gallons of pure water flowing through the lake. 

THE ELEVATED ROADS. When the World's Fair 
was located at Chicago it was seen that the transportation 
facilities were not sufficient to accommodate the people who 
would come to the city. The railroad and street car lines 
at once made provision for extending their service. But 
the innovation introduced was the South Side L, reaching 
from the business part of the city to the Fair Grounds. 
This roadway is elevated upon steel supports so as to be 
far above the traffic of the streets carried on below. It did 
splendid service with its little dummy locomotives for years, 
when finally the steam power was changed for electric 
power. Since the inauguration of the South Side L other 
companies have been formed and similar roads have been 
constructed reaching to the extreme west and north sides 
of the city. 

THE CHICAGO SUBWAY. Not only overhead, but 
underground as well, have lines of transportation been 
sought to relieve the crowded condition of the streets. Some 
five or six years ago permission was given to the Illinois 
Telephone Company to construct tunnels or subways under 
the streets of the city through which telephone, telegraph and 
service pipes might be carried and also to serve as a means 
of transporting freight. Up to the present time there have 

i8o 



been completed and put into operation over forty miles of 
this underground railroad. It has entrances leading from 
nearly every large business block in the heart of the city 
and daily thousands of tons of freight are moved to and 
fro under ground all unknown by the pedestrians above. 
These tunnels are from nine to fourteen feet in diameter 
and the cars and motors are made to correspond with these 
dimensions. 

We have wandered far away from the auction grounds, 
where lots were being sold at %6.y2 per acre, but at no time 
have we gone beyond the city and its growth. Of course 
with the growth in numbers must have come growth in 
territory. There have been fifteen different extensions of 
territory since the first city charter was received in 1837. 
Some of these have been made by city ordinance and some 
by votes of the people both of the city and territory 
to be annexed. The area has grown until the city is now 
twenty-six miles from north to south and about nine miles 
from east to west, covering a total area of one hundred 
ninety miles. Within this area dwell and work side by side 
the rich and the poor, the young and old, the learned and 
the unlearned. Here, crowded close together, yet scarcely 
seeing each other, are prodigality upon one hand and naked- 
ness upon the other; those who turn with weariness from 
loaded tables and those whose pinched faces and emaciated 
limbs tell the story of hunger and want and exposure. Here 
are the joyous and gay so full of laughter that they cannot 
see the sad and decrepit who try to creep away to hide their 
misery in dark corners. Over against the great array of 
churches and charitable institutions scattering their sun- 
shine and inspiring hope, hang the great clouds of crime 
covering the abodes of meanness and hatred and sin. 

Yet it is a great city bearing upon its forefront the in- 
vincible motto, *T will." There is no undertaking too 
vast for its consideration, no worthy enterprise which it 
will not dare attempt. The great waves of prosperity that 

181 



have come upon it have seemed to create within it a 
spirit of selfishness and heartlessness. But this is after 
all only apparent. Let any great demand stir its depths 
and no city in all the world will respond more gloriously 
to the call of duty and sacrifice than our own Chicago. 



182 



CHAPTER XXII 

A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY 

When Joliet and Marquette pushed their canoes up the 
IlHnois river on their return voyage from the Mississippi 
we remember that the Good Father wrote in his diary that 
they had seen nothing equal to the valley of the Illinois, 
"as to its fertility of soil, its prairie and its woods ; its cattle, 
elk, deer and bustards, ducks and beavers." These were 
only a part of nature's blessings bestowed upon this favored 
region. Since the coming of the white man the gifts of 
nature have been utilized and the great industrial forces 
have been marshaled to compete for the markets of the 
world. 

The primary and essential industry in all times must 
be agriculture. Bread and meat are necessary for existence. 
The farmer is the one upon whose broad shoulders rests the 
whole superstructure of civilization. Of about 33,000,000 
acres of land in Illinois there are about 28,000,000 acres, 
85 per cent, in actual cultivation. The census tables of 
1900 show that Illinois ranked first among all the states in 
the value of her crops. Wheat, oats, corn, hay, rye, barley, 
and the smaller fruits and vegetables are grown in all 
parts of the state, while in apple orchards the state ranks 
third. 

When we get below the hoe and the plow we find the 
great underlying strata of coal covering an area of about 

183 



37>ooo square miles. Out of one hundred two counties in 
the state coal is found in fifty-four. There are almost 
one thousand mines in active operation and the annual 
product reaches the enormous sum of about 40,000,000 
tons. We have coal enough under our feet to keep all 
the furnaces of the world going for generations. 

The coming of the railroads alone made possible the 
development of the farms and the opening of coal mines. 
Without means for transportation the most prodigal returns 
from the soil and the output of the mines would be of 
little value. To these great networks of steel rails with 
their puffing, rumbling trains of freight cars we must give 
much of the credit for the prosperity and comforts we enjoy. 
The railroad corporations have not been slow upon their 
part to see the opportunities for getting wealth by moving 
and distributing the products of the state. We have had 
the story of the long struggle which brought the first roads 
into use. Since that the number has increased until it is 
difficult to enumerate them. Chicago has become the great- 
est railroad center in the world. The total miles of railroad 
tracks now in use in the state is approximately 20,000, with 
yearly increases. The wages paid to employes upon these 
roads reach the startling sum of about $74,000,000 a year. 
The number of people employed by these roads in the state 
(116,000) surpasses the muster roll in many European 
armies. 

In manufacturing industries Illinois has developed so 
rapidly that she is in a fair way within a very few years 
to take her place at the head of all the states. She now 
leads in the manufacture of agricultural implements, steam 
cars, distilled liquors, watches, the meat packing products 
and several minor articles. In the manufacture of fur- 
niture, clothing and soaps only one state surpasses us. In 
the production of steel and iron only Pennsylvania and Ohio 
lead us. Besides these great industries there are num- 
berless smaller, but important plants from which come 

184 



train loads of wagons, carriages, buckets, locomotives, flour, 
chemicals, leather and other products. It is a busy state 
and the smoke of one factory may be seen from the windows 
of another in continuous succession from Waukegan to 
Cairo. 

With all this development of factory life has come a 
great increase in the number of people that have made 
their homes in the large towns and cities. When our present 
constitution went into effect the population of Illinois was 
about two and a half millions. It is now about five millions. 
Then about one-seventh of the total population was gathered 
in Cook County; now about two-fifths is in Cook County. 
All the languages of the earth may be heard in this great 
cosmopolitan city by the lake. More than seventy-five per 
cent of the children of Chicago have foreign born fathers 
and mothers. Greece and Italy, Russia, China and Japan, 
Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland 
have emptied out from their crowded borders the shiploads 
of restless humanity that have sought shelter, employment 
and homes in this great city. 

The press and the school have striven hard to keep pace 
with the growing population and the rapid industrial devel- 
opments. There are published in the state nearly eighteen 
hundred papers and magazines reaching an aggregate of 
over 10,000,000 copies per issue. What a world of — 
knowledge ! 

The public schools have increased until they enroll a 
million pupils with twenty-eight thousand teachers, with an 
increasing roster every year. The total expenditure for all 
these schools is about $23,000,000 per year. Besides the 
public schools there are over sixty incorporated schools and 
colleges and thousands of private schools, unnumbered and 
unrecorded, all working at the selfsame problem, — the 
spreading of greater intelligence and a better morality 
among the people of the state. 

Surely this is a state of which one may be proud. It 

185 



is well worth while to be one of the 5,000,000 citizens of 
Illinois. It is an inheritance worth fighting for, worth 
dying for. So thought our fathers, who came from their 
homes in great companies and regiments, every county 
furnishing its contingent, to follow Grant through swamp 
and forest in the Mississippi campaign, to march with 
Sherman to the sea, to lay their broken bodies in the 
valleys or upon the hillsides of the sunny south that we, 
their children, might have a country, one and undivided. 
And so their sons would do today did an occasion call for a 
similar sacrifice. 

ILLINOIS 

By thy rivers, gently flowing, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
O'er thy prairies, verdant growing, 

lUinois, Illinois, 
Comes an echo on the breeze, 
Rustling through the leafy trees, 
And its mellow tones are these, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
And its mellow tones are these, 

Illinois, Illinois. 

O'er wilderness of prairies, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
Straight thy way and never varies, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
Till upon the inland sea 
Stands thy great commercial tree. 
Turning all the world to thee, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
Turning all the world to thee, 

Illinois, Illinois. 
186 



When you heard your country calling, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
When the shot and shell were falling, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
When the Southern host withdrew, 
Pitting Gray against the Blue, 
There were none more brave than you, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
There were none more brave than you, 

Illinois, Illinois. 

Not without thy wondrous story, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
Can be writ the Nation's glory, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
On the record of the years, 
Abr'am Lincoln's name appears. 
Grant and Logan and our tears, 

Illinois, Illinois, 
Grant and Logan and our tears, 

Illinois, Illinois. 



187 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX 

1666 — Marquette arrives at Quebec. 
1669 — Marquette on Lake Superior. 
1672 — ^Joliet reaches St. Ignace. 

1673 — Joliet and Marquette on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. 
1674-5 — Marquette spends winter on Chicago river, 
1675 — Marquette establishes the Mission of the Immaculate Con- 
ception among the Kaskaskias. 
1675 — Marquette dies on the shore of Lake Michigan. 
1678 — La Salle at Niagara. 
1679 — La Salle on the St. Joseph river. 
1680 — La Salle on the Illinois with Tonti. 
1682 — La Salle reaches the mouth of the Mississippi. 
1683— La Salle in France. 

1684 — La Salle sails for the mouth of the Mississippi. 
1687 — La Salle assassinated in Texas. 
1699— Iberville on the Gulf. 

1700 — Tonti and the Kaskaskia Indians leave ''The Eock.'* 
1704 — Bienville governor of Louisiana. 
1710 — Vincennes established. 
1712 — Crozat receives a grant of Louisiana. 
1717 — Law's Mississippi scheme formed. 
1718 — New Orleans laid out. 
1718— Ft. Chartres built. 

1720 — Eenault brings five hundred slaves to Illinois. 
1722 — The Mississippi bubble bursts. 
1748 — The Ohio Company formed. 
1753 — Washington sent to warn the French. 
1754 — French and Indian war begins. 
1754 — Washington surrenders Ft. Necessity. 
1756— Ft. Chartres rebuilt. 
1758 — Ft. Massac established by the French. 
1763 — The French claims ceded to the English. 
1765 — The English take possession of Illinois. 
1772 — Ft. Chartres destroyed by the Mississippi. 
1774 — The Quebec bill passed. 
1775 — The Eevolutionary War begins. 
1778-9 — George Eogers Clark conquers the Illinois country. 

i88 



1782 — New Design settled by Americans. 

1783 — All the territory to the Mississippi becomes the property of 
the United States. 

1784-6 — Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut cede their west- 
ern territory to the government. 

1787 — The Ordinance for the Northwest Territory. 

1790 — St. Clair county organized. 

1804 — Ft. Dearborn, Chicago, established. 

1809 — Illinois territory organized ; Ninian Edwards, Governor. 

1812 — Ft. Dearborn massacre (August 15). 

1812 — First territorial legislature meets at Kaskaskia. 

1812 — Organized counties increased to five. 

1812 — Shadrach Bond elected as delegate to Congress. 

1813 — Preemption act for Illinois passed by Congress. 

1818 — Enabling act passed for Illinois. 

1818 — Shadrach Bond elected to be the first governor. 

1818 — Illinois formally admitted to statehood (December 3). 

1820 — Eemoval of state offices to Vandalia. 

1822-4— Slavery agitation. 

1825 — The first attempt at a school law. 

1827 — Congress makes a grant of land for the Illinois and Michi- 
gan canal. 

1832— The Black Hawk War. 

1833 — Chicago incorporated. 

1837 — Springfield becomes the state capital. 

1837 — Elijah P. Lovejoy assassinated. 

1839 — Northern Cross Railroad built by the state. 

1840 — The Mormons come to the state. 

1844 — Joseph Smith killed in Carthage jail. 

1846 — The Mormons expelled from the state. 

1846 — Abraham Lincoln elected to Congress. 

1848 — Illinois and Michigan canal completed. 

1848 — The second State Constitution adopted. 

1850 — Congressional land grant for the Illinos Central Eailroad. 

1854 — State legislature establishes the office of State Superintend- 
ent of Public Instruction. 

1855 — Education law passed; basis of the present law. 

1857 — Building of the penitentiary at Joliet. 

1857 — State Normal University established. 

1858 — The Lincoln-Douglas debates. 

1860 — Lincoln nominated for the presidency at Chicago. 

1861 — U. S. Grant takes command at Cairo (September 4). 

1865 — Lincoln buried at Springfield (May 5). 

1867 — Illinois University established. 

1868 — U. S. Grant nominated at Chicago. 

1870 — The third State Constitution adopted. 

1873 — Women allowed to hold office under the school law and to 
vote for school officers. 

1889 — Establishment of Chicago Sanitary District. 

1900 — Chicago Drainage canal opened (January 2). 

1901 — The new apportionment gives Illinois twenty-five congress- 
men. 



189 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

A WORD IN CONCLUSION 

We have come to the end of our stories. In the preceding 
pages we have had before us in outline the history of IIH- 
nois from the time when the Indian and buffalo roamed 
over its prairies and plashed through its streams unseen 
and unknown by the white man, until it has taken its place 
as third in population in the great sisterhood of states. We 
have seen Chicago, the camping place of the fur-trader, the 
lonely winter home of the dying missionary, the scene of a 
bloody massacre when not more than a half dozen roofs rose 
above its sand hills, grow into a mighty city, second in 
population and industrial enterprises among all the cities 
of the Union. We have watched the counties come one by 
one, until they increased from the single district outlined 
by St. Clair to one hundred two counties, all rich and pros- 
perous. 

We have watched the changes in laws and the growth of 
constitutions from the time when English laws and English 
juries first made their appearance in the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi until we find ourselves living under one of the best 
constitutions and in one of the best governed common- 
wealths in America. 

We have had a few glimpses of the trials and privations 
of the early settlers who first plowed our prairie lands, 
drained our swamps and felled our forests, and, knowing 

190 



something of these, we have come to appreciate more highly 
the opportunities and comforts that surround us. 

Our stories were nearly told before we found a railroad 
in the Illinois country, but when we look at a map of the 
state now we see Chicago, Peoria, Decatur, Danville, Free- 
port, and many other cities, appearing as hubs in wheels 
surrounded by radiating spokes which reach out and out, 
covering the entire surface of the state with a network of 
iron rails. 

Illinois is not old in years, yet when she came into the 
family in i8i8 there were no sewing machines to make her 
garments; there were no mowing machines to reap her 
harvests; there were no matches to light her candles, nor 
kerosene to fill her lamps. The telegraph, the electric light, 
the telephone, the typewriter and the steam locomotive were 
as undreamed of as are the mysteries of the unknown future 
today. 

How did our fathers Hve in those days? We can never 
know in full, but, seeing dimly through the occasional rec- 
ords left behind, we can imagine that their lives were strong 
and vigorous, not all filled with sorrow and tears, but having 
in them much of joy and sweetness. They lived up to their 
opportunities, setting an example which challenges us to 
our utmost endeavor to measure up to the standard they 
have left. 

Should these stories inspire some of the boys and girls 
who read them to seek for fuller sources of information, to 
strive for a high type of usefulness in the city and the state, 
to a larger view of life and a desire for a noble manhood or 
womanhood, no matter v/hat the station may be, the purpose 
of their writing will be fully justified. 



191 



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